A mask test. It would be nice to see this carried to the extreme. (2025 Update)

//Unsurprisingly, a fitted N95 mask resulted in the most effective reduction in droplet emissions, with a surgical mask relatively close behind. However, most homemade cotton masks tested delivered strong results, blocking droplet emissions at rates not far off what was seen in the surgical mask tests.//

So, what's new? []'s

I hate to be an "I told you so" but I have been saying this for months. It is interesting that after "masks" were written into law all over the country somebody is finally getting around to defining a standard for what a mask is. Usually the first paragraph of a law is "definitions" so we understand what they are talking about. We have skipped that part.

This was particularly significant. " “The notion that ‘anything is better than nothing’ didn’t hold true,” says Westman, discussing the results of the neck fleece test. Westman says the number of particles emitted through the neck fleece resembled the volume seen in baseline tests with no mask at all.

I also wonder if they tested the multilayer mask after someone had worn it all day working and the moisture had soaked through. I think you would see the same "small droplet" problem.

The other thing is they are selling lots of things that look like a surgical mask, but they aren't. Who knows how effective they are at anything?

Like hell you have. You have in fact stupidly claimed that masks are worse than no masks at all and what has been cited says nothing like that and it says that surgical masks are much better than nothing.

Its no news that a bandana isnt as good as a surgical mask.

They arent doing that either.

Which doesn’t in fact define exactly what a car is, stupid.

Same with cars and houses and boats etc etc etc.

Wota surprise.

Wota surprise.

More fool them given that cloth masks don’t.

He didn’t explain, he CLAIMED, a different matter entirely.

Then read the scientific paper, stupid.

Even sillier than you usually manage and that’s saying something. A damp mask is much more likely to trap the aerosols and it is completely trivial to prove that.

Still much better than no mask.

The part you left out:

"The notion that ‘anything is better than nothing’ didn’t hold true"

The mandate in this state says 'face covering'. Enforcement is left to the businesses; it is they that potentially are fined for non-compliance, not the individuals. If there is someone posted at the entrance they used to be a produce clerk a couple of months ago and are not qualified to judge the effectiveness of the 'face covering'. A Jesse James style bandanna, which apparently is worse than nothing, fits the bill.

I bought a box of the finest Chinese masks, $20 for 50. I have no illusions that they are effective for anything other than satisfying the requirement for a 'face covering'. I wouldn't depend on them to filter a

That cite doesn’t say that.

That has been done.

Yep.

Its in here somewhere, bit hard to search in there.

I read something about that, a scientist built a test box, what he suggested was easy with things any well-equipped lab would have, with a laser? light and a cellphone camera and he concluded that all the home made and commercial style masks were petty good (wrt not infecting others iirc) EXCEPT the stretchy spandex ones that go down one's neck to the shoulders. Those he found were worse than nothing

I might have posted about that here, but there's a good chance I didn't.

Correcting myself: Not all the home-made masks. Maybe none of them. I've been looking for the page but haven't found it yet.

Bob,

They don't do a damned thing.

-T

But they don't.

Masks are for masktards.

My immune system has been protecting me for decades.  When my immune system stops working, I'm dead anyway.

My problem is there is no "clean" data about these masks' actual impact on the virus. All of the anecdotal studies look at masks in addition to other measures so there is no way to know if the mask is doing something or it is things like keeping bars and other assemblies closed. I guess the question is how many people who were infected in New Zealand last week were wearing a mask.

Yeah you are only half infected.

You have this, an actual clinical study with a control group and over

Only in the sense that no one does trials which deliberately exposes people to aerosols with this virus in them and sees who gets infected and who doesn’t.

We don’t with smoking and lung cancer either, for a reason.

More flagrantly dishonest language, its anecdotal or its s study, stupid.

That is another bare faced lie.

Corse there is when you test a mask to see what aerosol gets thru it. And you can even test it with this virus, but not with a human.

That’s not an experimental study, stupid.

Nope, because they had no lockdown so no one was wearing a mask.

The problem is that most of the control group were wearing a surgical mask or better.

But not this virus,

It doesn’t count because it wasn’t this virus and the control group didn’t have no masks, stupid.

More of your flagrant dishonesty.

Everyone knows that. It's why people are arrested for using nylon knickers as masks where masks are mandatory. I use a cloth mask when I got out or for a run/cycling. I suppose they could bother snowflakes, but Brazil is too hot for them. []'s