LogFAQs > #939167632

wwinterj25 posted...

I hope you're wearing your mask now and are no longer being hypocritical. I would assume so given your passionate posts about this but in the past you've proved otherwise so I must check.

A couple cloth ones should be showing up in the mail any day now, at which point I do intend to wear them whenever I go out. These days, though, I'm only going out for biweekly groceries (last one was the 4th, next one is on monday) and the occasional walk around my neighbourhood. In the case of the former, I don't think I've made such a trip since the last time I discussed this, and in the case of the latter, distancing is easy enough that it's not as big of a deal.

dancer62 posted...

The common paper surgical mask is somewhat effective for the first 5 minutes, before it becomes moistened by your breath and stops being more than symbolic. Bandanas that do not seal at all, just a social gesture and sort of cool to walk around emulating an Old West desperado.

So, yes, rude to not wear a symbolic face covering, but insignificant unless you wear a mask that seals well, and change it often.

Just about anything you can cover your face with will have some effect. Nothing's going to be perfect, obviously (short of a full-on SCBA kit, which is pretty hard to beat for protection, but a typical one still doesn't work so well for containment because that's not what it's for), but the nature of exponential growth is such that any small improvement can have significant downstream effects. Infecting 4 people today instead of 5 can mean a couple hundred fewer cases in two months' time.

Quite simply, if improvised masks truly did nothing, public health agencies would be telling people not to bother, not saying that they're an okay alternative if proper masks are unavailable.

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