Covid, the "lockdowns" etc.

[rgalex]

The Ohio government got smart and is getting the businesses to enforce their BS for them.  Despite nearly everyone masking up anyway, they told the businesses they would be shut down if someone is caught w/o a mask inside.  So you have private businesses requiring them, not the government, with the excuse that it's no different than "no shirt, no shoes, no service". Some even have police standing at the entrances regularly to deal with "unruly" people who want to put up a stink.

I've had to switch to doing 90% of my shopping online.  It either gets delivered or I get curbside pickup.  I had to completely stop going to one place though because they required masks worn for even their curbside.  A couple pizza places have started asking that you wear a mask when answering the door, to protect their drivers.

The union at my work place delivered a few packages of masks last week with a note: Please double mask, save a life.  No one here took it serious and only 1 person is double masking, but they were already doing it before this.

There are an amazing amount of people, employees and customers, that I've seen wearing it under their nose.  For the few times I do put a mask on I'm tempted to replace my "This Mask is Bullshit!" one with a "It Goes Over the Nose, Asshole!" one I saw online.

[Shasarak]

Double masking is fucking hilarious.

Maybe try using a N95 mask instead - if you are smart enough to wear it properly.

[dkabq]

Double masking is fucking hilarious.

Maybe try using a N95 mask instead - if you are smart enough to wear it properly.

It also has be be properly sized to wear properly. For my wife (who works at a hospital), it took 2 hr for the *trained* fitters to find a proper sized one for her -- YMMV. Properly wearing it resulted in bruises on her cheekbones -- again, YMMV. Regardless of the bruising, they are not comfortable to wear for long periods of time. They also have to be cleaned properly on a periodic basis.

Any mask has to fit with an air-tight seal on your face or its filter effectiveness is lost due to the majority of the airflow bypassing the filter material. The decrease in effectiveness increases with the bypass area and the ratio of the pressure drop across the filter material to that of the bypass area. That's why most masks are worthless as anything other than a hankie strapped across your face. It will catch big stuff from a sneeze (leaving you with a face-full of snot), as its inertia will carry it into the mask, but the small stuff will stay with the flow and escape via the bypass area. The same is true on reverse. When you inhale, flow will preferentially across the bypass area rather than the filter area.

A good test is if your glasses fog in the cold; if they do, your mask is crap.

I leave the calculation of the Stokes flow threshold for big/small stuff as an exercise for the reader. 

Based on my modeling and analysis experience, particles in the >10 micron AED range (the notional cutoff for "respirable" particles) are difficult to filter via impaction. In an N-95 mask, filtration occurs via electrostatic effects (N-95s are made from an electrostatic non-woven polypropylene fiber). I have a colleague that was tangentially involved in looking at using radiation to sterilize N-95 masks. They found that after about 5 sterilizations the radiation damaged the material such that the electrostatic effects were lost. Which begs the question of how "electrostatic" other mask materials are.

One reference I found, found that surgical mask *material* had highly variable filter efficiencies, and hence, "The wide variation in penetration levels for room air particles, which included particles in the same size range of viruses confirms that surgical masks should not be used for respiratory protection."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7357397/

Here's another one showing the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of cloth face masks. It also does a nice job of walking through some basic aerosol physics.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452199X20301481

Obviously one or two studies are not definitive, but they do illustrate that mask *material* effectiveness is highly variable. Couple that with variability in proper fitting and proper wearing, and you start to wonder if wearing a mask is more of a Kabuki dance rather than an effective mechanism to reduce virus transmission. 

IMHO, social distancing along with not spending long durations of time in poorly ventilated rooms that have a high concentration of airborne virus (e.g., a packed conference room, subway car) is your best bet. My one data point for this is that despite the properly fitted and properly wore N-95 mask, a cover mask, a face shield, gown, and gloves, my wife still got COVID.

[Mistwell]

People still buying into this incredible hoax? That last spring's nasty seasonal bug justified destroying the world economy and inflicting misery on millions of perfectly healthy people?

How much brain damage were you born with? Or were you hit with something later in life which caused you to be this stupid?

[Kiero]

How much brain damage were you born with? Or were you hit with something later in life which caused you to be this stupid?

Not as stupid as someone who believes in an imaginary pandemic.

Didn't your CDC just reclassify a load of "covid" deaths as other things, because the original figures were fraudulent?

[Kyle Aaron]

I've seen him posting since before I joined this forum, Mistwell. He's always been like this.

[Kiero]

Double masking is fucking hilarious.

Maybe try using a N95 mask instead - if you are smart enough to wear it properly.

The Bavarian state in Germany mandated N95 masks in it's mandate. Made no difference whatsoever, in comparison to other mask mandates in other states.

[Ghostmaker]

People still buying into this incredible hoax? That last spring's nasty seasonal bug justified destroying the world economy and inflicting misery on millions of perfectly healthy people?

How much brain damage were you born with? Or were you hit with something later in life which caused you to be this stupid?

You helped elect a senile old hair-sniffer who's literally shuffling around and bumbling through speeches, while the Democrats try to take the nuclear codes away from him. You have no room to talk to ANYONE about 'brain damage'.

[Pat]

https://thehill.com/policy/international/china/540575-china-denies-it-required-us-diplomats-to-take-covid-19-anal-tests

Remember that uncomfortably invasive test China developed for covid-19? They've been using on US diplomats in China. Without consent.

Apparently diplomatic immunity doesn't apply below the belt.

[Kiero]

I've seen him posting since before I joined this forum, Mistwell. He's always been like this.

To think I once believed Aussies were sensible people made of pretty stern stuff. But the way you've lapped up this coronabollocks (and what the actual fuck is going on in the People's Republic of Victoria?) says I was obviously wrong.

But sure, the coalition of bedwetting cowards, hypochondriacs and neurotics are surely the correct ones.

[Brad]

The best thing about COVID-19 is that it cured the seasonal flu. Went from something like ~100k annual deaths to almost zero. That's good news!

[Kiero]

The best thing about COVID-19 is that it cured the seasonal flu. Went from something like ~100k annual deaths to almost zero. That's good news!

Amazing what happens when you reclassify virtually every respiratory infection as covid.

[Ghostmaker]

The best thing about COVID-19 is that it cured the seasonal flu. Went from something like ~100k annual deaths to almost zero. That's good news!

Amazing what happens when you reclassify virtually every respiratory infection as covid.

Along with motorcycle injuries and gunshot wounds.

[Shasarak]

The problem really is confusing deaths caused by the Wuhan Flu Virus with the economic damage caused by governments flailing for solutions.

[Brad]

The problem really is confusing deaths caused by the Wuhan Flu Virus with the economic damage caused by governments flailing for solutions.

Our governor FINALLY lifted these idiotic mask mandates (I never wore one anyway) and the usual suspects are coming out in full force claiming he only cares about money and not people. Yes, literally thousands and thousands of businesses destroyed and millions of people out of work directly resulting in deaths from stuff like suicide, but if we only save one 93 year old with diabetes IT'S TOTALLY WORTH IT!

You could get hit by a fucking bus crossing the street. If that bothers you, don't cross the street. Instead these morons want us to outlaw buses...