At the bottom of this page is a pdf called “how to wear and safely take off a cloth face cover”.
How many people do we think are following this process? From what I can see not many…I see people wearing masks with gaps on the sides, or touching it, or pulling it down or out to speak or breathe, etc.
I know I touch my surgical mask a lot when wearing it, to pinch the nose tighter to stop my glasses fogging up, etc.
Mwfan1921 raises the question I have been struggling with which is am I better off getting surgical masks vs. cloth masks. I have some of each, but as places are beginning to open up, I don’t know which I should be using. There are so many sellers on Amazon and Walmart as Mwfan1921 pointed out, is there any way to tell which are truly good surgical masks? Is there any sort of certification process? Any and all ideas appreciated!
Can someone please weigh in on the efficacy of a cloth mask that has a filter pocket? I do not have one of those but have considered ordering one and some filters.
No clue. But you also have to wear the masks correctly. So if there is wire like with a surgical mask or pipe cleaner for a home made one pinch the nose to contour it and pull it over and under your chin. Wearing it just over your mouth helps me but not you since your still breathing in unfiltered. N95 is a different ball game. People take courses to put it on correctly. Look up on you tube or the like. Just wear it snugly is the idea with all masks.
If you want to protect yourself from others, wear an N95 mask or stay home. That’s been pretty clear.
If you want to protect others from yourself, a cloth mask worn over your nose and mouth is fine. As mentioned above, there haven’t been randomized controlled studies, but it’s easy enough to eyeball the justification for that. The internet meme I saw recently involved men peeing with or without their pants on, and where the pee went. You can look that one up yourself. But the mask keeps the large particles you exhale to yourself.
The other way to protect yourself is not to spend much time in enclosed spaces with other people. But if you have to, you are safer if they are all wearing masks. And if you are setting a good example by wearing a mask, maybe they will be more likely to.
So heaven help us, maybe we need the mystifyingly popular Instagram influencers and celebrity grifters to start appearing in masks.
In our area (metro-NYC) doctors think they may be seeing the post-Covid multisystem inflammatory syndrome (similar to Kawasaki disease) not just in children, but in people over 18. These are generally people who had a mild case of the virus and stayed home, but weeks later are having this reaction possibly due to their adaptive immune response. This is a different phenomenon from the hypercoagulation and resulting clots seen in a subset of patients around the third week of illness. It does thankfully seem to be rare.
I found the hypothesis about what might be happening in these patients in reaction to the virus fascinating, so I wanted to write it out in order to better understand it. Warning: I am trained as a teacher, not a scientist, and even immunologists haven’t figured out all the ins and outs of this stuff!
A person has been fighting SARS-CoV-2 and winning with a properly modulated innate immune response, and the more general antibodies IgM/IgA.
Now, the adaptive immune system has triggered the B cells to make specific antibodies to the virus, IgG antibodies.
These IgG antibodies will bind (better than more general antibodies) with SARS-CoV-2, tagging it to be destroyed by other immune cells through digestion or toxification.
Now, the immune system recognizes its own newly circulating antibodies as foreign and makes antibodies to the antibodies, or anti-idiotype antibodies. (This is thought to be normal and a way to calm down the immune system, known as the anti-idiotype network.)
The anti-idiotype antibody was made to bind with the original antibody. The antibody was made to fit together with the SARS-CoV-2 virus binding site. Therefore, the anti-idiotype antibody is shaped like the virus binding site.
It took me quite awhile to wrap my brain around this. It helped to think of it this way: The virus’s binding site is like a lock. (The binding sites for SARS-CoV-2 are thought to be the spike proteins, or the rays of the crown. I think of these spikes as having a keyhole-like binding site at the end.)
In order to neutralize the virus, the immune system makes a key which fits exactly into that lock and sticks out like a flag to mark the virus for destruction. The body sends out an army of keys (antibodies) to fit in all the viral locks.
But it also begins to make anti-bodies to the antibody, or its own locks which fit around the keys and neutralize them before they can bind with the virus. These locks are shaped a lot like the binding sites on the virus because that’s what the key is made to fit into without falling out. This is usually fine and can help keep the army of keys from getting out of control.
However, in some people, the locks which the immune system made to neutralize its keys are too similar to the virus's binding sites (crown spikes with a keyhole in the end). Those "locks" are antibodies, so if they bind with something, it's flagged for destruction.
The virus evolved to bind to human ACE-2 receptors (picture the corona spike with the keyhole fitting onto a human cell with the blade of a key sticking out of its surface).
Now that the immune system has been in action for weeks, there are anti-idiotype antibodies in circulation, and they are shaped like that corona spike with keyhole. They start binding to human ACE-2 receptors, tagging those cells for destruction.
We have ACE-2 receptors in the heart, lungs, kidneys, GI tract and endothelial cells (walls of blood vessels). Our hypothetical person's immune system is primed to destroy any cells which bind to any antibodies, and now it has made an antibody which binds with (and flags) its own cells.
In this hypothesis, the virus has triggered an autoimmune reaction, and that is what is what may be making these people sick.
I was “fitted” for a n95 mask at work. It was quite a process. They put a hood over you and spray something in and ask what it smells like. They had at least fifteen different n95s to choose from. They look at your face to see which they think might fit. You put it on and go back in the hood and they spray the spray again and have you do various movements to see if you can smell it. If you can smell it you fail the test and they try a new one. When I wear my n95 my glasses never fog up.
My state is permitting the kids to play baseball this summer. When the kids are not on the field or up at bat, they are required to wear a mask. Considering we are supposed to be touching our faces as little as possible, I am not sure having a policy where the kids are constantly moving the mask off their faces and then putting them back on is the greatest idea.
Cloth masks act like the sleeve you are supposed to cover your face with when sneezing. They do offer protection to others from your fountain of droplets… but they do little to protect you from airborne particulate. It is impossible to say to what degree cloth masks work to protect the wearer because there is no single standard; we use a hodgepodge of fabric and styles to craft them - anything from an old pillowcase to a Gucci scarf. Try to publish a study using that!
‘But my area is very busy with joggers running right past me. They can spew aerosols that stay up in the air and then you just gingerly walk by and inhale them. Large droplets fall to the ground but not the very small aerosols droplets. So, if your not by anyone then don’t wear one. If you go to a crowed place put one on.’
Do you think there is a real risk of getting covid from a jogger passing by? We walk outside and rarely see anyone else. Occasionally joggers or other walkers are on the road and we go to the other side (or they do). I feel pretty safe with this. I don’t think the chance of getting covid from joggers is very high and would guess it is close to a statistical chance of zero.
As for masks, I have read that depending on the mask and filter used, some are pretty darn good at protecting the wearer, even if not at n95 level, and others not so much. I had not seen 3%, though.
Re: joggers. Remember, the dose you get is = exposure time x virus concentration. Yakking to someone for 5 minutes while standing 6 ft from them could be way more dangerous than passing a runner 6 feet apart for a couple of seconds.
@Mwfan1921 - that was a general comment not directed at you. I thought I was clear by not tagging you. Sorry. I was telling the readers why it is important to make sure the glasses do not fog up. Some posters have been asking what to do with the glasses to prevent them from fogging. My answer - nothing; but make sure the mask is properly worn.
This is not a scientific study but it does show how far sneeze droplets appear to travel when not blocked, blocked by two hands, blocked by your arm, and blocked by a tissue. The people sneezing rinsed their mouths with a red food dye to make droplets more visible. I think the fact that we could not see anything when the person used a tissue gives me hope that cloth masks with a tighter weave and filter are helping prevent inhalation of particles at least a bit. I think it does show they must be helping prevent others from getting sick.
