OK, this is a serious thread about why masks MIGHT be effective in curbing the spread of a virus, despite the virus particle being smaller than the ability of a mask to filter it. I am happy to answer questions about this stuff, but I will not respond to attempts at pure trolling or ridiculousness, so if you have a question, please keep it real. I won't respond to MEMEs...nor will I respond to the merits of shutting down, economic policy, politics, or other questions or comments about the virus such as treatment, etc. I am happy to PM answer any questions that are legit about any of that stuff, but lets keep this thread simply about the merits of a mask and how effective mask wear can help mitigate disease spread.

A virus (or other microflora) requires a medium in which to live. Some viruses are fragile, meaning they can live outside a medium for a very short period of time, while some are more hardy and can live outside a medium for a while and then when transferred to a different medium become alive again and replicate. But, all viruses need a cell host in order to replicate. A single virus isn't going to make anyone sick, it is the probably billions of virus that replicate and destroy host cells that cause symptoms and sickness.

So, what is a medium in which a virus can live? A living organism, a human, secretions from a human, etc. There are non-living media sources labs use to transport virus and grow them, but those are not the topic of discussion here.

How does virus get from one person to another? A virus doesn't just leave a human as a single virus floating in the air. It simply isn't fungus that grows and then pops its spores and virus is floating in the world. A virus is transmitted by human contact of some form or another. Human secretions such as snot, cough droplets, sneeze drops, etc. These things contain virus and that virus can live for some period of time in that media. A droplet that comes into contact with a person could then be rubbed into mucosa (mouth, nose, etc) and the virus can then find cells in which it can infect and replicate. A droplet that does not come in contact with a person initially will settle to ta surface, floor, counter, door knob, etc. These different surfaces can then be touched by a human, and again the virus (if it is still viable) can then be rubbed into a mucosal surface and create infeciton. A sneeze, cough, or other body action does not ever create single virus that is free floating in the air. Anything from an infected person is always in some sort of media, snot, droplets, body fluids.

So, that is why a mask can be effective. We have sick people who don't know they are sick. If they sneeze, cough, or spit when they talk, they can transmit virus outward from their body. A mask can catch those body secretions. Likewise, a mask can catch those secretions in a healthy person and prevent them from coming in contact with the mucosal surfaces, limiting possibility of infection. (Obviously, a saturated mask from a sick person is not going to be effective) Likewise, hand washing is also recommended to limit the spread of contact spread from door knobs, counters, etrc that a a mask would never capture, but effective hand washing has been shown to greatly reduce the amount of microflora on your hands which could be used to spread disease.

Our bodys immune system can fight off small amounts of virus or bacteria for the most part, and we won't get sick. So if we keep the amount of infectivity" low, to a few viral particles, our body will do the job. But if we do a poor job protecting ourselves and allow a large viral load into our system, the virus will overload our immune system and disease will follow.

Hope that helps

Thanks for the explanation.

I see discarded masks all over the Walmart parking lot.....is this more concerning than someone simply spitting or sneezing on the parking lot surface?

Same with me. They are even in the gutters.

It drives me crazy when people are so lazy as to litter, but thats a different concern.

The reality is as long as you aren't going around touching them and all that, those discarded masks should really be of little consequence to most of us. If I were working at walmart and told to pick them up, I would use gloves, discard them, and then wash my hands.

The question of how much UV light they are exposed to is impossible to tell, and does the underside being "cooked" in the sun kill the virus? Probably. We don't know since no one has studied that as far as I know and it isn't important to me personally, so i won't go looking it up. but the likelihood of catching virus from walking on the same pavement as those discarded masks has got to be sooo low I would almost call it zero.

Tb what is your long game?

Explain what you mean by that. It is loaded with so much I don't know where you are going

Good stuff. Im in the camp, like many, that dont think we know for sure how effective masks are and that is in large part because a lot about the virus is still unknown. Personally, I think common sense would say that they are at least partially affective. We certainly have enough threads about policies and politics and I hope all the guys that like to take such a strong and vocal voice on such matters will do so on the other threads.

The main stuff is known.

There is about a .05% mortality rate, which drops to nearly 0 when you get to the 45 and below crowd.
The size of the virus vs the size of particulates a mask can stop is dreadful.
The eyes are vulnerable as the virus can enter through them.
The evidence of this virus being airborne grows every day.
The population in general have no idea how to effectively wear a mask.

People make me sick.

Nailed it. Especially about the under 45 crowd. Another THFer posted ,"A way of thinning the herd."

Mike, you are about 10X off on your mortality rate. I have hashed this out before, in order to have 120,000 deaths and a 0.05% mortality, it would require the US to have 240 million people infected.
I will give you its likely somewhere between 0.7% to 0.4%, but to take it another 10X that and say a 0.05%, thats just not possible given the numbers we have seen. Even if we take what the CDC says that 10X the positive cases are actually positive (which has not been played out in any antibody sampling nor in any other considerations for infectivity, pretty much all along they have been saying the max R factor has been 1-1.3) we would still only be around 20Million infected int he US...a far cry from 240 million. Even if we say half of the dead were "faked" covid deaths and say only 60,000 died, that still would require 120Million to be infected already in the US. The numbers just do NOT add up. So, if you want to post drivel and non-factual data, please go ahead, but I need everyone to realize the stuff you post has no factual or realistic basis at all.
I dealt with the mask size vs virus size already. If you can show me how a free single virus survives outside media and can float in air, then I will give you that point....but I don't think you will ever be able to do that. Heck in the past you said UV light kills the virus almost instantly. So by your own logic, that shouldn't be a problem, and you should realize the masks are to prevent droplet exposure, not free virus exposure.
I dealt with your eye thing already, and that was not convincing, and even if it was, washing hands will prevent most of the spread through the eyes IF masks are worn (prevents droplets from being airborn from infected people).
If you have evidence the virus is free floating in the air, please share it. I believe you would find it is aerosolized in droplet form and then is affect by gravity just like everything else in the world. Virus doesn't fly, it has no mechanism to do that, and if not in media, it dies. Viruses do not have any mechanism for self energizing, they need host cells for energy, they steal it from cells. Without cells to infect, virus is just dna. This point is another example of how you talk about stuff you don't know anything about.

I will agree the population in general don't wear masks correctly.

Bill, you mishandled the hammer this time, you missed the nail and hit your thumb square....

And the mortality rate in the under 45 year olds is not next to zero. In tarrant county alone, there have been 5% of the deaths in the 25-44 yo group, and 27% in the 45-64 yo group. 5% of 248 is 12. that isn't zero, especially if one of your loved ones is part of that 12.

3 million cases. 133k deaths. What is the mortality rate?



Kinda looks like it's next to 0.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#AgeAndSex

Let's leave the emotions out of it and deal with facts.

0...1....2....3....4....5...6...7...8...9..10...11...12

1 is next to zero...12 isn't. thats pretty elementary dude. if you cant see that, then I can't help you

3 million cases and 133K deaths.

you take 133,000 and divide by 3,000,000

That gives 0.0443333

Which to make it a pecent you mutiply by 100

and gives:

4.4%

Ummmmm, thats way off from 0.05%


However I am willing to admit we don't have account for all the cases, due to asymptomatic people and others that haven't been tested.
Thats how I come up with my 0.7-0.4%

I am just reading the CDC chart TB.

Back to the other question.. 3 million cases. 133k deaths. What is the mortality rate?

What I find a bit interesting is when you look at studies prior to 2019 and compare the influenza attack rate between mask wearing countries and non mask wearing countries it appears there isn't a lower attack rate of respiratory illnesses in mask wearing countries.

I understand vaccines may play a roll which is one reason why I looked at Korea who has higher rate of vaccination than we do, but appears to also have a higher flu attack rate than we do.

So if masks + greater vaccination rates don't lead to lower population level attack rates of respiratory illnesses can we expect CV-19 to be any different in the long run?

With that being said, I do wear a mask, and I would like to believe that it will make a difference, but I am generally a pessimist.

I feel like our nation is so unhealthy that we have set ourselves up to be hit hard by this type of virus.

And I am just reading the tarrant county numbers.

Look above for your answer. It might shock you.

3 million CONFIRMED cases.

Funny that the case count always mentioned is the confirmed number and not the suspected number (never even talked about).

and the death count...well, lets just go with suspected and confirmed in the same category.

Large difference in dying WITH a virus than dying FROM a virus - but hey - lets just count them all together.

You will either get sick or you won’t. You will either die from covid or you won’t.

Only God knows the date and time you will leave the earth, I can’t spend time worrying about it and not living my life

Agree with your last statement for sure.

When comparing different coutries and mask use with influenza, you have to remember the differnet populaiton densities and different personal lifestyles in different countries compared to the US. Imagine if China, Japan, Asia didn't mask up during flu season, they would be much worse than us. our population is largely spread out, we don't mingle in fresh markets every day, we don't go into completely jam packed subways every day, we have personal space as a norm. It really is a apples to oranges comparison, and impossible to argue the way you did.

The better comparison would be looking at those countries without masking and with masking. I don't know that data, but would be interesting to see.

Agree, I consider the number somewhere in the 20-30 million mark for the US currently. The deaths are hard to argue, but again, even taking half away for "faked" covid deaths, the numbers still don't add up for mortality rates like some spout off. It is likely below 1%, how much lower, we don't know. It is not in the 0.05% rate though (just so we are all talking about the same numbers, thats 0.0005 not 0.05) as there is just NO WAY we have had even close to 100Million infected in the US.

BTW, I base my infected numbers off samples of antibodies in several countries, the US included, that show around 4-5% antibodies int he general population.

I agree with the population density which is even more confusing. We would expect due to our population density to be hit much less as you alluded to...yet we aren't seeing that.

We are seeing a much different attack rate, which I wonder if it has to do with our health.

I wonder if the rates of 'asymptomatic' infection is considerably higher in those countries than our country due to that personal lifestyle aspect.

Problem with masks is that literally nobody wears them appropriately.

They touch their face nose and mouth more with a mask on and then touch everything else around them.

Not to mention usually a spit, snot and sweat soaked cloth mask.