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Wear a mask!

What NIOSH rating do you recommend?

Huh?

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has ratings for masks and respirators, depending on what type of contamination they protect against.

It doesn’t matter.

So, if you were going to be exposed to phosgene, you’d just rely on some random scrap of cloth?  Because you’d die. You need specific filters for specific contaminants.  That's why it specifically says on the labels they don't stop viruses.

They have to say that for liability reasons.

Incorrect. Your fluoride toothpaste can say it reduces cavities, because it has been proven to do so in extensive studies.

It stops the droplets.

What droplets?

Droplets that contain the Covids.

Viral particles can be aerosolized in large droplets that stop in cloth, and in droplets small enough to pass through, or airborne, or can transmit through the fecal-oral route, or several other disseminations. Cloth masks bottom out at a 3 micron mesh.  Coronavirus particles are about .1 nanometers.  They're smaller than cigarette smoke or VX nerve gas.  A cloth mask is incapable of stopping them.

The mask helps.

The most favorable meta-study in 2020 claimed a 1.9% reduction in spread, but failed to account for demographics, movement patterns, population density, or natural or artificial environmental factors.  A recent study cherry picked one village in Bangladesh, rather than comparing, say, Houston to New York or LA, and only found a 1% reduction in spread, only above age 65, and again failed to account for any other factors. This is a failure.

Why don’t you have faith in science?

First of all, science does not involve faith, it is a methodology, and when your observed facts, such as above, contradict the hypothesis, then the hypothesis fails and is junked.

Masks work!  The fact checkers say so!

The fact checkers are usually journalists with zero scientific credentials, disputing people who do have credentials. They also usually misstate the claims.  When they attempt to refute a claim, they tend to use a single recent pop article, or out of context single study, to argue against 50 years of professional research that random cloth masks don’t do anything.

Just wear a mask and this will be over!

That claim was made in July 2020, that “6-8 weeks of masks” would end the virus. Once again, observable facts contradict the hypothesis, therefore, it fails and must be junked. There was no statistical difference in disease spread between areas requiring masks and areas not.

Wearing a mask is doing something!

You could also hit the ground with sticks.  In our study group, 100% of people hitting the ground with sticks daily avoided COVID.

That’s ridiculous. How would a stick possibly work?

The same way a mask does. At least it would be doing something.

I hope that by not wearing a mask you die.

But if the mask is to protect others, then why would not wearing one affect me?  Please make up your mind how it works.  And, if it stops viral particles going out, why wouldn’t it also stop them going in? Also, that’s a pretty uncharitable position.

Follow the science!

There are fifty years of research on masks, regarding viruses and other contaminants.  I’m following that science, which also means questioning claims.  Including the recent claim that a random scrap of cloth is effective at anything other than reducing airflow.

(At this point you’ll either have broken their programming, or they’ll insist you’re a “Trumper” and refuse to debate further.)

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