Would you be willing to stand near a confirmed Covid-19 patient that is only wearing a non-standard, home made by a stranger, ill fitting, unapproved, face mask?

I wrote this on April 12, 2020. I took it offline because of the venom then being directed at anyone who questioned any aspect of the face mask hysteria. In early March I had mentioned wearing a used shop N95 mask and was instantly shredded by a health care worker for my having stolen an N95 mask from a health care worker. I was, she said, to donate it to my local hospital – which would have promptly thrown away a used, soiled N95 mask.

April 12, 2020:

The purpose of a home made face mask, we are told, is to protect others from an asymptomatic individual from exhaling particles. The “experts” acknowledge that home made face masks, based on actual research, are nearly useless for inbound protection. But the new ad hoc theory spun on the spur of the moment is that anything will filter outbound projections.

Ok.

Would you be willing to stand near a confirmed Covid-19 patient that is only wearing a non-standard, home made, ill fitting, unapproved, face mask made by a complete stranger?

According to the CDC, yes, you would be. Their rule assumes people are out and about with Covid-19, but don’t know it. And the only way to protect you is that the unknown sick person is wearing a homemade cloth face mask of a random design.

Research studies found that materials like pillow cases or cotton t-shirts may only filter 20-40% of large particles (viruses are about 0.1 microns and are not likely to be filtered at all).

Would you be willing to stand near a Covid-19 patient who coughs – and expels 60-80% (or more) of their viral load through their home made face mask?

Do you feel safer knowing that you are getting just 60-80% of their output instead of 100%?

If public health official were serious about home made masks, they would have issued design and materials guidelines. Instead, we were told that a scarf or bandanna would suffice (they absolutely will not ). Public health officials were not serious about home made masks – at all – or they would have provided guidelines.

Merely because a piece of cloth is sewn in a pattern that resembles a medical face mask does not, in fact, make it an effective face mask. It merely looks like one and acts as a facade of protection. Real face masks meet ASTM Standards that are referenced by laws.

This is “Why I am not wearing a homemade face mask“.

Update: I attempted to make an air filter mask promoted by a doctor on Youtube. The video has been watched over 7 million times. Making it requires special materials and equipment (HEPA filters, sewing machine, hot glue gun, various supplies) which most people do not have in their homes during a stay-at-home requirement. I made it far enough along to find it was ill fitting and incapable of providing an adequate seal on my face.

Most of the “resembles a medical face mask” projects have become fashion statements using available fabrics, pillow cases or old shirts. They are documented in the literature as being ineffective to the point of uselessness.

What public health “officials” have done with this is outrageous. I ask again:

Would you be willing to stand near a confirmed Covid-19 patient that is only wearing a non-standard, home made, ill fititting, unapproved, face mask?

Update April 15

I am so old, I remember a few weeks when the CDC suggested wearing r “scarfs and bandannas” for protection, that doctors were saying that bandannas are ridiculous and offer no protection:

“So the CDC changed some of your guidelines, I think they did this ultimately as a way of acknowledging the dire conditions that hospitals may soon find themselves in. People like you, they recommend that health care workers as a last resort might think about re-using masks or even using a scarf or bandana.”

“What do you think of that?” asked the CNN anchor.

Dabby blasted the CDC recommendation as “absolutely ridiculous.”

“I can’t imagine putting on a bandana to go take care of a patient with a highly infectious disease that could kill me. I will not do that. We need our healthcare doctors, providers, techs, therapists, everybody healthy and strong to fight this virus. We will not let our healthcare workers get sick.”

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/absolutely-ridiculous-ucla-doctor-tells-cnn-theres-no-way-health-workers-can-use-bandanas-as-face-masks/

Public Health has flip flopped every which way and has zero credibility.

Politician’s too. Gov. Cuomo issued an order today that it is now state law to wear useless bandannas in public:

The governor specified public transportation or crowded neighborhoods as examples of places where people “must wear a mask or cloth or an attractive bandanna or a color-coordinated bandanna.”

https://nypost.com/2020/04/15/andrew-cuomo-orders-new-yorkers-to-cover-faces-in-public/

Gov Cuomo is an idiot. Some one infected with a virus will emit billions and billions of virus particles per day. (A single swab of a Covid-19 patient was found to have a maximum of 7.11 x 10^8 virus RNA copies per whole swab – that is 711 million). Will you stand next to a coughing Covid-19 patient who has covered their mouth with a bandanna and is emitting millions to hundreds of millions of virus particles per cough? Are you fucking kidding me?

Note – I am not opposed to using actual, effective face masks based on approved designs and materials. I am opposed to the failure of public health to recommend approved designs and materials. Their failure to recommend reliable face masks shows they are not taking the use of masks seriously and by recommending the use of garbage face coverings, are directly putting the public at risk.

The shortage of PPE was NOT CAUSED by hobbyists and businesses purchasing non-medical grade face masks months and years ago. The shortage of PPE was caused by public health and emergency management planners failure to plan for a pandemic. Public health officials made up the “hoarding” accusations to shift blame from themselves to falsely blame the public. This in turn has led to public mask shaming, verbal and physical assaults, fines and arrests, and a threat to shoot up a supermarket because “not enough people were wearing masks”.

It was then exacerbated by incompetent leadership that – as of April – has had 3 months to ramp up new manufacturing but has failed to do so. Longer term, the nation will ideally required hundreds of millions of certified face masks every day until a vaccine is available. But as of mid-April, there has been minimal increases in production at apparently, no significant ramp up of production to meet the needs of hundreds of millions per day.