Face masks.

[june2007]

Anyone notice on the news the number of people wearing masks not not in the correct way, eg not covering the nose, gaps at the side. Making them about as good as a chocolate t-pot.

It doesn't really matter as long as they cover the mouth.

As has been said many times, they don't really protect the wearer - would need to be face-sealed to do that and worn with goggles as virus can just as easily enter through the eyes.

Their main benefit is in protecting other people from the wearer since most emissions whether from breathing, talking or coughing will be stopped by the mask.

It's a shame the UK doesn't follow the example of Hong Kong and South Korea and make them compulsory.

The wHO say only really needed if caring for someone with cV or if your coughing and sneezing. Going by what the popel were doing the clip it would not have protected others from a sneeze. (Still get discharge through the nose.)

Face mask pulled down to have a smoke. While wearing gloves.

@notrub not true, a sneeze will or cough will come out of those gaps still. I don’t agree with PPE being wasted by non NHS staff anyway but definitely not with people not wearing it and/or disposing of it correctly.

Some one in Sainsburys today took theirs off to smell a loaf of bread
I've also seen lots of people texting in their protective gloves - what's the fucking point.

@OneHanded
Sneezing isn't a covid symptom, so not to worry. Neither is "emissions from the nose"

And while a cough would to some extent escape, it would lose much of its force so it would not travel as far - note particles ejected by coughs have been shown to travel up to 9m

What it does do limit is particles emitted through breathing/talking, which are increasingly thought likely to be the MAIN mode of transmission.
www.livescience.com/covid19-coronavirus-transmission-through-speech.html?utm_source=notification&fbclid=IwAR1-kGwVZthQ_m8bK7x8igtI-eKVgpq2SnW-3VB9KjhWCJe-IisFhwOHuhs

The WHO guidance is based upon whether or not a mask protects the wearer - they are currently looking at updating it, but in their position, they CANNOT update guidance based on circumstantial evidence, which is why it takes time for them to do so.

The evidence is pretty obvious it works though - just look at places like HK where despite being a crowded city, they've had a very slow start to the epidemic because the entire population immediately started wearing face masks.

Sneezing isn't a covid symptom, so not to worry.

It isn't but people with Covid will still sneeze. Covid doesn't stop all the other things. The virus can be ejected onto someone else via sneezing.

Sneezing isn't a covid symptom, so not to worry.

It isn't but people with Covid will still sneeze. Covid doesn't stop all the other things. The virus can be ejected onto someone else via sneezing.

Yes, that's possible but I don't really see how relevant that argument is.

It's like saying you shouldn't wear seatbelts because if you crashed at 70mph, they wouldn't save your life.

Note - the concern over NHS supplies is valid, but easily avoided - simply make it illegal to supply the type used by the NHS to the public - as the CDC are advocating in the USA, face masks made from things like scarves or even T-shirts are highly effective in trapping most of a person's own emissions.
Clearly they won't stop them all, but surely any reduction in the amount of virus floating around in public spaces will reduce the spread of infection.

Anything that brings the reproduction rate down even slightly is enormously helpful. Say you still infect one other person with a mask, but without it you would have infected two.

The next day you infect one more person, and so does the other person you infected. By the third day you have six cases.

Without masks you infect two people on the first day, you and they infect six others on the second and by the third day 18 people are infected.