Why Masks Actually Work

OK, I'm done with the baseless moaning about masks (which I don't enjoy either).

Therefore, I am herewith reposting my response to a post by a mask denialist, of which there are still many.

All the facts in my post are verifiable, so please do not waste your time or mine berating my 'opinion' - just go educate yourself, if you are inclined to disagree; I am not going to debate 'opinion', which is simply a waste of time, but will always engage with verifiable facts (also, no so-called 'experts' will be tolerated - only facts).

Epidemiological evidence shows that the claim that masks are like a lattice fence or gate, and cannot stop outgoing viral particles is entirely wrong, in practical terms. Three-layer, close-weave masks, or medical masks, impede the outflow of exhaled air, preventing much wider dispersion of viral particles thus exhaled.

Many viral particles stick to the fibres of masks, which are 'furry', not solid as per the illustration (a lattice-type gate), tending to absorb particles of spittle (plus viral particles therein) and also keep 'escaped' viral particles close the exhaling person where, without forward momentum, they will tend to fall onto skin or clothing of the exhaler (for the most part) or, for the relatively few remaining particles, left drifting in whatever ambient breeze or air flow there may be but at a vastly reduced concentration than without a mask (at least 1,000 times less, mask dependent).

Consider this: CO2 per particle size runs in at 0.00065 microns (thousands of a millimetre). The size of average normally exhaled respiratory droplets are typically 5-10 microns/micrometers (μm). One does not have to be a science wizard to see that almost all respiratory droplets (the major vector by far for Covid and other exhaled infectious viral particles) must be 'caught' by appropriate masks.

Masks 'capture' most viral particles in saliva droplets, which are at least 10,000 times larger than viral particles, the latter very seldom (almost never) exhaled 'all on their own', but within, rather, a matrix of bodily fluids and cells.

Thus this meme, typically for denialists who choose which 'data' to use, is deeply misleading relative to the actual facts. So misleading as be considered in practical terms a falsehood. But even if sole viral particles are released on an outgoing breath, they are still likely to be trapped, or blown back into the face of the exhaler (hence all the whingeing about CO2 'toxicity' allegedly, but not actually 'leading to', pneumonia and brain damage, both of which claims are completely false too - or all else all nurses and doctors would be permanent lung patients with destroyed brains, which is clearly not the case).

The size of a single viral particle, being 100 nm for SARS-CoV-2, makes it (for convertibility's sake) at 0.1 microns, 300 times the size of CO2 particles - the very same CO2 particles that anti-maskers complain of being 'overwhelmed' with when they wear masks. Aside from the obvious contradictions - masks can't both be preventing proper air flow and also be ineffective against viral spread, simultaneously; it must be one or the other, if either - there is the obvious fact that masks that work as meant to, do in fact cause a blow-back of outbreath into the face of the wearer.

Complaints of the ill-health thus wrought are, as indicated above, baseless - even your outbreath contains quite a lot of unused oxygen and, within the first microseconds of an inbreath, sufficient oxygen has already been taken up (assuming healthy lung function) to be more than adequate, even with a mask - ask any surgeon who has done a 10 or 12 hour procedure, or the nurses in attendance or the anaesthetist. They are not 'stupider' for having worn masks non-stop for many hours - they may be tired to the bone, but they are definitely not 'brain damaged'.

Thus mask myths are put to bed and those promoting such ideas should stop spreading baseless nonsense which is also dangerous.

PS. I don't 'believe in' masks. I rely on facts.