According to that study, the mask material on the receiving end cut transmission in half. It cut transmission to a quarter by filtering on the source end.
The hamsters who were still infected despite having the mask barrier also had less of the virus in their bodies compared to those infected without the masks, the researchers found.
Um, okay, interesting.
That’s pretty significant, and well worth investigating in conditions closer to the real thing. Something that might chop the R0 that much, especially in places opening up, is important.
Yeeesh. Let’s try not to make the conspiracy theories come true.
I didn’t know there were hamster conspiracies. (Do they involve dances?) I just found that aspect of the study strange. On my campus a researcher proposing a study like this would still be trying to get IRB approval.
I’m really struggling with trying to be safe and wearing a face mask while I walk or jog around my neighborhood to get exercise. The cloth masks just don’t provide enough air to breathe doing anything strenuous, and the paper masks end up being so uncomfortably clammy from the moisture of breathing. My wife tells me to just be socially distant, and just keep several feet away from other people … cross the street, or keep at least 8 or 10 feet apart from others. But I feel like some of my neighbors look askance at my unmasked face. The best solution I’ve settled on is to just go out early before anyone else is out.
Have you looked into buffs? They go all the way around your head, over your nose, and seem to have pretty good airflow. The ones with microfiber material should, in theory, be better than cotton masks, due to smaller pore size and complex fiber geometry (more of an asterisk-like cross-section than round).
I wear mine for running and biking, and I get enough airflow. It’s not comfortable, per se, but much better than regular masks.
Apparently my kid had dreams about a playground last night. How do you tell a 3½-year-old that they’re not going to play in a playground again until they are five?
And yes, we continue to be lucky: much worse things being explained to little kids right now.
Since January, the researchers have collected more than 200 million tweets… They found that 82% of the top 50 influential retweets are bots, and 62% of the top 1,000 retweeters are bots, too.
hat tip @anon15383236 from the heather cox richardson posts.
( eta, gotta love the one box. i guess it wasn’t masks or 5g spreading coronavirus but twitter all along. )
worse than that. the person was symptomatic. presumably they thought they had to go to work since paid sick time is not a thing, unemployment isn’t available to them ( bc the state re-opened ), and becoming homeless or not being able to eat are terrible options.
the real ridiculous part is the governor opening the state in the first place and this choice recommendation:
He warned residents who recently visited the same locations as the stylist, including a Dairy Queen, a Walmart and a CVS pharmacy, to look for COVID-19 symptoms and isolate themselves if they develop.
note too they allowed the shop itself too to reopen after “cleaning” - as if none of the other workers or contacts might be infected and now spreading the virus asymptomatically.
don’t be too harsh on the individuals when it’s the people in office who are forcing the terrible conditions
Wow. I feel for you. We are so glad that ours are a bit older (primary school age) it would be so so so hard with really young ones.
I see people giving out very often for people having children out with them. What can parents do? I mean obviously if you are the most influential advisor in England you can just get your pensioner parents to look after your children by driving hundreds of kilometers and taking your virus on a road trip (I mean it’s not like your workplace was a hot-spot of infection…) safe in the knowledge that the billionaire press and all the Nasty Party would come out to bat for you as you didn’t give nasty science based advice.
Sack the twat. One rule for them… and all that but i hope nobody will be quite so callous as he was to the victims of this should his parents pay the price for his reckless behaviour.
Also: regulations for preventing contagion in Germany were followed, this didn’t help here:
Nor here:
And this is worrying for me, as my employer saysthat the two monitors between people opposite of each other working in a lab/office are “effective spit protection”:
Those social distancing rules would probably work great against SARS, with big droplets that fall to the floor. Against finer COVID-19 asymptomatic droplets with much longer hang-time, not so much. They need to update the social distancing recommendations to avoid enclosed areas, lots of people, without enough fresh air circulation. Open the doors, windows if they can.
Rules based on old information is going to get people hurt, killed. By now it should be clear that COVID-19 doesn’t need those big droplets to spread.
Yeah, there’s something about these svengali type characters in government that always seem to have a +1 backstabbing immunity yet the tories always always turn on their own eventually.
