Believe me, I am well aware of these issues. However, note that our quarantine is only 14 days for arrivals, not a general quarantine or curfew. Once the new arrival has cleared the quarantine, they have the same freedom of movement as anyone else, they have the same ability to infect or be infected as anyone else who lives here. The health question for us is whether a handful of new arrivals will, once passed through quarantine, contribute significantly to new channels of transmission. I really canât see how. If anything, the thousands of Hawaii students who are staying home rather than going off to college are more of an issue, since they are far more likely to be socializing with all their high school friends.
Of course, there is an issue of whether very large bubbles are really manageable bubbles. There is the example upthread of an extended family where 40 had tested positive; that family is obviously too large to be a bubble. Many college campuses â including mine â have been trying to sell the idea that you can put all the undergraduates into dorm- or campus-sized bubbles. I donât believe it, but to the extent it is true this isnât worse.
Over the weekend, Honolulu police issued 1,350 citations to those violatingâŚ
Yeah, we re-closed down the parks, this is the first weekend where people are not allowed in parks or beaches except to pass through en route to swimming or surfing. I know of people who were cited because they were walking on a parkâs sidewalk (which is permitted) but â horror! â their dog set foot on the parkâs grass. I hope that after this demonstration of how serious they are about enforcement, the police will now devote their energy to finding real problem cases, especially quarantine violators, indoor parties, and bars and gyms and churches not following isolation protocols.
they said 14 mask types were tested, that the mask types can be ranked in quality, and then they donât list the full ranking and show pictures arranged in an arbitrary order - leading people quickly looking or sharing the article into believing the masks are ranked as shown.
ahg!
eta:
the original paper doesnât either, hereâs their resultsâŚ
which would take some time and reading to discern which of the 14 original images matches what. and will still probably be error prone. the paperâs authors and the reporters at the gothamist and globe shouldâve known better frankly.
Funny, the only time Earth history when a listicle would have actually been useful, and they whiff it.
And I still donât know what the â â â â â a âjoggerâs fleeceâ is. Fleece is wool or synthentic wool you wear to keep warm, right? Someone wears that around their mouth?
I thought the OG article was pretty good. Still, I would have liked more details on the material of the âbadâ neck gaiter they tested, since they describe it as âfleeceâ but the picture looks like microfiber. Full disclosure: my go-to masks are neck gaiters, which has changed as of this morning, but it would have been nice to see them test the range of materials for them. Now, they have been all lumped together as bad when there is probably a difference in performance between cotton, cotton synthetic blends, Lycra, polyester, and fleece materials.
I heard on of the studyâs authors on the news yesterday and they said the stretchy material caused the larger droplets to become smaller and hang in the air longer. It seemed counterintuitive to me, but they showed video and still photos of the experiment to illustrate their findings.
My husband decided to stop wearing his bandana after he saw this segment and use one of the multi-layered cotton masks I found for him. It fits snuggly around his nose and mouth. To be fair, he only used the bandana when out walking and heâd still stay a good 30 ft from people. However, he wants to model good mask behavior.
It makes me wonder if, as the experimentâs author suggested, wearing a second layer of that mask would greatly improve itâs performance. The research I did early on certainly implied that a microfiber gaiter should have superior performance to cotton due to the pore size. If a second layer helps capture the smaller particles that have been decelerated by the first layer, I would like to see that data.
Here in Tijuana, this is one of the main problems. So many people routinely gather to drink and socialize that any attempts to regulate quarantine protocols, theyâre viewed as an affront to traditionâŚso the ones who fail to see the seriousness of the situation move indoors, and keep taking the virus home to relatives or to work the next day.
Fucking valved masks, too. I get really irritated these days when I see someone wearing one of those since itâs basically allowing them to breathe unchecked all over me.
A census taker came by my place today. I filled out my census forms in April but due to âgovernment efficiencyâ, there were apparently two records for my address (both ever so slightly different) so I kept getting a second census form to fill out. I called the Census customer support weeks ago asking them how to reconcile this since I didnât want to be double counted and they gave me some convoluted instructions on how to fix it to avoid dealing with a census taker.
Clearly that didnât work because a census taker came by anyway.
She wasnât wearing a mask.
The US Census purports to have a mask mandate, and masks are required for anybody in a public place in my state.
Iâve lodged a complaint with the regional Census center, but looking at the Twitters unmasked census workers going door to door is shockingly commonplace right now.
Not a great paper. Leaves so many questions unasked, doesnât try to explore obvious corrolaries. Unfortunately, the conclusion will be spun, unfairly, as âsee, masks are worse than no mask! Proof!â
I canât even tell the difference between the various kind of cotton mask, and certainly canât understand why a 2-layer cotton mask would underperform a similar-looking 1-layer mask.
However, I think the main point of the paper was not to compare masks, but to introduce a new technique for comparing masks.
I think this is a problem in most places. Thatâs why Iâm not very impressed with all the beach-shaming; Iâd rather see the youngâuns cavorting on the beach than squeezing into indoor parties.
Well, âgaiterâ is too broad. Thereâs nothing scientific about comparing specific masks like the N95 to âgaiterâ, or âcotton5â. Itâs kind of ridiculous. Even âN95â is pretty broad. Youâll find masks labelled N95 at Home Depot for woodworkers that are very different than the ones we use in hospitals. Some are rigid, some are floppy cloth, some have vents.
I am sure there are gaiters that are useless, and some that are as good as most other things. I see people wearing good masks with the top strap around their head and the bottom strap dangling. They would flutter like a shutter if they sneezed. Nothing is going to help that.
How the mask fits, how many layers it has, etc., is most important. Someone with the best valved N95 is going to be dangerous to people around them. The best advice I have seen remains:
âDonât behave as if you are trying to protect yourself from other people. Behave as if you are already infected and trying to protect other people from yourself.â
