Save Newport Real News in Newport Beach
The OC Board of Health recently mandated masks for all of OC, although County Sheriff Don Barnes said he won’t enforce the restrictions.
“We are not the mask police nor do I intend to be the mask police.” said the Sheriff, in another rebuttal to anti-constitutional laws.
But do masks even help? In medical environments, masks are unwashable and disposable, allowing people to throw away what they expel into the masks and not re-breathe it for hours, days, or weeks on end. In our current environment, many people simply re-use masks over and over again. Masks that can be washed become effectively disabled as they align the previously-randomly-aligned fibers and remove the electrostatic charge.
But before we debunk reusable masks, let’s debunk a much-repeated rumor now: If you can smell a toot through a mask, then that does NOT mean your mask is ineffective against a virus. Toot molecules are roughly 0.4 nm, whereas viruses range from 20 up to 400 nm, so your mask may not block the smaller objects, but can still effectively block a virus. However, if you’ve got a “cotton mask”, it’s kind of like trying to stop mosquitoes by putting up a chain link fence.
Now let’s say you get a legit surgery mask: The problem with masks is that 80% of the germs are caught inside the mask– because that’s what masks are designed to do. But, again: masks are made to be disposable after each patient or at least every couple of hours at max– not worn for days on end. With our current situation, people are wearing them for days on end. And then you wind up breathing through a filthy filter. Sound gross? It gets worse.
What your body *is* trying to get rid of, it catches 80% of them *inside the mask* and prevents them from leaving your vicinity upon your exhale. Then you inhale again, breathing them all back into your lungs. If you have a virus (any virus, or anything else your body is attempting to expel– yes, including co2), this massively increases potential health problems including increasing your viral load by re-ingesting toxins and germs that you inhale after your body expels them, expanding problems far beyond “normal” symptoms. This is why Coronavirus was affecting nurses so much more than normal people– they have an increased viral load, due to wearing masks (and sine masks are so hard to come by, particularly by using the same mask for day(s) on end.
It’s unhealthy to the wearer to wear when sick, and near-useless to wear to the wearer when well (unless it’s an air-tight fit, which almost none are, otherwise the air comes through the sides when you inhale, because it’s less resistance than going through the filter).
Can it help OTHER people if you are sick? Yes, it sure can. All of that stuff that is harmful to you that you are rebreathing? It blocks that stuff from being breathed in by other people.
Just to be clear: standing in front of a Mack Truck when you are sick would also help *them*, and nobody is advocating for that.
Stay healthy.
