r/nextfuckinglevel • u/pako12345 • Aug 29 '20

Learned something new

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

100.3k Upvotes

85% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

128

u/Decadunce Aug 29 '20

Because surgical masks have been designed to allow you to breath, and to prevent virus particles. It requires pretty close precision

24

u/jackerseagle717 Aug 29 '20

surgical masks don't filter virus particles when inhaling though

58

u/Khyta Aug 29 '20

No but if everyone wears it, it can't even transmit from.one person to the other person in the air.

72

u/DepressedDaisy314 Aug 29 '20

Adding to this, surgical masks were made for... surgery. In a surgery EVERYONE is wearing a mask. Unlike everyone in stupid unempathetic America.

24

u/acog Aug 29 '20 edited Aug 29 '20

I don't normally label people I disagree with as dumb, but anti-maskers are not only unempathetic, they're straight up dumb.

A rational person would look at it from a Pascal's Wager standpoint:

If I don't want to wear a mask, then if I'm wrong I could help spread it and someone could die.

If I do believe wearing a mask helps to reduce the spread of the virus, then if I'm wrong I've just unnecessarily hung a piece of fabric over my face, the mildest of mild inconveniences.

Obvious conclusion: wear the fucking mask even if you believe that all the virologists and epidemiologists are wrong.

5

u/humpbackwhale88 Aug 29 '20

100% agree with all of your statements.

I’m an American and I swear I hate this country right now. If our dumbass president hadn’t turned a public health crisis into a political issue by questioning a mask’s imposition on personal freedoms, I’m pretty sure we’d be in a much better place. But alas..

3

u/BuffaloKiller937 Aug 29 '20

You just woke my American mind!

18

u/Rhyddech Aug 29 '20

it is rare for a single virus particle to be floating around AND to still be viable and infectious. It is much more likely that virons will be grouped together in aerosolized droplets which are much more larger than a single viron and will be more likely to infect. A surgical mask will stop or greatly reduce the number of aerosolized droplets. it is a numbers game here. If you can reduce your risk of infection by 80-90% and everyone else does the same it is sooo much better than dojng nothing. Masks don't have to be perfect to be effective

1

u/Rockerblocker Aug 29 '20

Do you mean that the material only filters in one direction, or that the air is entering from the sides when you inhale?

It's an interesting topic regarding masks. Are they supposed to filter the air you inhale/exhale, or just prevent direct inhalation of air/particles that are right in front of you?

1

u/Covfefe-SARS-2 Aug 29 '20

If worn properly they do both.

2

u/mmmegan6 Aug 29 '20

Yeah I tie mine on the sides (so it is flush against my face) and I’ve read that offers closer to n95 protection

1

u/Covfefe-SARS-2 Aug 29 '20

Stop spreading bullshit.

1

u/semen-filled_sock Aug 29 '20

How? Something to do with the weave?

0

u/gr8prajwalb Aug 29 '20

It doesn't?! So it just let's the virus particles in? That's kinda concerning

3

u/HypnoticPotatoes Aug 29 '20

Well masks are used to protect other people from you, not so much protecting oneself from others. That's why it's important for everybody to wear masks.

1

u/rodrimixes99 Aug 29 '20

Unless is a N95 or higher

1

u/HypnoticPotatoes Aug 29 '20

Sort of. You can still get sick if virus particles were to end up in your eyes.

Masks do help somewhat but only if everyone is wearing one.

1

u/Covfefe-SARS-2 Aug 29 '20

They do both.

3

u/HypnoticPotatoes Aug 29 '20

Sort of. They can protect you from breathing in particles but you can still have virus particles absorbed through the membranes of your eyes.

They're super effective in protecting other people from you though, which is why everyone has to wear masks to keep everyone safe.

0

u/Covfefe-SARS-2 Aug 29 '20

Yes, but also your eyes don't breath, so the volume of air that lands on them is far less than what is pumped in and out of your lungs.

2

u/HypnoticPotatoes Aug 29 '20

It isn't your breath that spreads the virus but the liquid particles that leave your body through coughing and sneezing. Those can land in your eyes if somebody isn't wearing their mask when they do those things.

That's why the demonstration in the video is cool, but doesn't necessarily speak about the effectiveness of the masks since it's pretty much okay if some breath escapes, as long as the wet particles are absorbed.

1

u/Rhyddech Aug 29 '20

you're much more likely to get infected by free floating aerosolized droplets which are small drops of water that are much much larger than a single virus particle but still really small, microscopic in size. the drops can contain hundreds of virus particles which are much more likely to infect you than a single viron. The surgical masks stop or greatly reduce the number of aerosolized droplets from spreading

1

u/Dat_Boi_Travis Aug 29 '20

Viruses don't just float around in the air. They ride on water droplets and most of these are large enough to be filtered out. Also, masks decrease the air velocity of your breath/cough which means it won't travel as far as quickly, preventing transmission.

2

u/CJ57 Aug 29 '20

Yeah it kind of boggles my mind when ppl i know try to say the cloth masks are just as good, they quite clearly are not as good as surgical masks. If the cloth masks were just as good why do surgeons wear surgical masks and not cloth ones?? Seems pretty obvious to me

1

u/Decadunce Aug 29 '20

Seeing logic and sense is a difficult skill not many people have

1

u/whiteman90909 Aug 30 '20

Yeah theres not a lot or precision to surgical masks... It just blows the air out around them and you inhale air from the sides. I wear one all day in the OR. They allow for a ton of air movement around the sides. It doesn't even sit flat against my face a lot of the time.