Working at home two weeks and my mom has already run out of black ink on her printer

[conuly]

Holy shit. I hope her job reimburses this expense. I just put a hefty amount of black ink on auto-delivery, and also paper.

In other news, we ran out of coffee, so I made an emergency run to the dollar store to get more. Nothing else would've impelled me to go there just now, but since I was there already I got more snacks, soup, milk, and bleach. They were sold out of butter, alas... I may have to brave the over-expensive Western Beef pricing! Talked to the cashier, she's stuck, when she's not at work, in a home with ten other people, only one bathroom. Puts my complaints about being cooped up in perspective!

Now, here's a thing I'm curious about. Two people I know - two people who are pretty reliable when it comes to this sort of thing, and whose opinions on science article abstracts I can trust - have recently linked me to this article, using it to back up a claim that use of cloth masks increases spread of disease compared to not wearing a mask at all: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577

The reasoning around this makes sense - even careful users are going to have more moisture near the face, which may breed disease, and most people are not careful users and do all sorts of stupid things with face masks like lower and raise them willy-nilly. And, of course, there's not much quality control on the homemade cloth mask front.

However, the article does not seem to back this conclusion up at all, for the simple reason that they were not ethically able to put together a control group of hospital workers who don't wear masks, and their "normal use" group overwhelmingly used masks, so what you're comparing is "workers who use surgical masks" and "workers who use cloth masks". It's also not clear if the cloth masks were being changed with the same frequency as the surgical masks (twice a shift) or not. And, importantly, we definitely haven't established if using masks all day in a hospital gets results that can be generalized to the casual wearer who only wants to go out briefly to walk their dogs or buy butter.

(Other people, without citing any articles, have suggested that people wearing face masks may go out and about more and thus spread more disease. This is funny. The mere thought of having to breathe through a mask is enough to make me reconsider even the most dire of errands.)

So I don't actually know what to make of this article. Is there any data at all to back up the conclusion that face masks are riskier than no mask? Obviously I want the best and most accurate information so I can make the best choices.

Comments

[glaurung]

Here's a video in which a doctor who cares for people in ICU on respirators in a NYC hospital talks about what precautions are and are not necessary: https://vimeo.com/399733860. It's a recording of a live conference call, so it's long and there are interruptions and technical glitches.

The brief version:

1. The virus transmits primarily via prolonged close contact with someone who is infected - being within touching distance of an infected person for 15 minutes or more. That's why parties and other large social gatherings are such huge vectors. It gets from the infected person's nose/mouth to their hands/entire body, and then gets onto an uninfected person via touch.

2. It is not clear if it transmits only via skin-skin contact, or if it can get from an infected person's hand to an object to an uninfected person's hand. To be safe, the hospital where the doctor works has everyone who is working with infected or potentially infected people wearing masks because masks prevent you from touching your nose/mouth by accident.

3. They use regular surgical masks for this, not N95. Even when they are in the room of an infected person, giving them medicine or taking their vitals, they only wear a regular surgical mask (and the usual gloves). They only use N95 masks when they are interacting with a patient in a way that can cause tiny particles of saliva to get into the air - changing breathing tubes on a respirator, for instance. I imagine he'd recommend EMS workers wear N95 if they can, since they're more likely to be in situations where an infected person can't help coughing into the worker's face.

4. Wearing a regular surgical mask to prevent unconscious face touching, plus diligent hand washing/hand sanitizing every time they touch something that might have the virus on it seems to be protecting the hospital's personnel from getting infected, even on the unit where they are caring for people with COVID-19.

Given all that, wearing a cloth mask when you go out shopping, and then washing/changing clothes on returning home, makes sense as a protective strategy.

[conuly]

3. They use regular surgical masks for this, not N95. Even when they are in the room of an infected person, giving them medicine or taking their vitals, they only wear a regular surgical mask (and the usual gloves). They only use N95 masks when they are interacting with a patient in a way that can cause tiny particles of saliva to get into the air - changing breathing tubes on a respirator, for instance. I imagine he'd recommend EMS workers wear N95 if they can, since they're more likely to be in situations where an infected person can't help coughing into the worker's face.

My guess is that the reasons for this have little to do with efficacy and everything to do with supply issues - there aren't that many N95 masks at hospitals right now (and if you have any, you should donate them).

Of course, they're also hard to breathe through and kinda a pain, so that's another reason to avoid them if not strictly necessary.