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Therein lies the big problem we all have .... finding a reputable source among this rather massive collection of liars wearing white coats and blue suits, along with paid trolls on message boards.
But thanks for acknowledging that it was not the virus, but actually bacteria that was responsible for most of the Spanish Flu deaths, as I accurately stated.
Now, in leu of the mask wearing being responsible for the collection and distribution point for subsequent bacterial lung infections, I’m open to consider an alternative view of the source of these bacterial infections? But frankly, it’s the most plausible conclusion, given the fact that we know that cloth can collect and harbor bacteria (it’s why it’s important to wash your underpants, and wear clean ones ), and why you might not want to wear your dirty underpants on your face or leave your head up your arse for too long .... well, the masks can indeed collect bacteria ... and continued wearing of masks which are contaminated with bacteria would logically create a situation which you were steadily breathing in bacteria. That said, I don’t believe we are going out on a skinny limb here to consider that a bacterial lung infection might result from inhaling bacteria repeatedly?
Is that me being anti-science again? Or is this just plain freaking common sense??
Before I reply, I just want to clarify something. I made a mistake when I wrote that bacterial pneumonia was responsible for the majority of Spanish Flu deaths. The truth is, we can never know that. All we can know is that bacterial pneumonia was responsible for some of the deaths from Spanish Flu. However, no where have I found anything to suggest that wearing masks was what allowed for a secondary infection of bacterial pneumonia to take hold in people suffering from the Spanish Flu.
If you could provide some credible sources that offer evidence of this, I would be happy to take a look at them.
This reply to GuyNTexas’ post is going to be a bit long, because there is a lot to unpack. I hope he will read through the entire post so he can see why his position is problematic and wrong. I also think it is important for anyone who agrees with his point-of-view to read it through and consider my points.
First of all, let’s take a moment to address bacteria in masks. Comparing underwear to a disposable or washable mask is a false equivalency. What comes out of your butt is not comparable to the air you breathe out of your mouth, and even a mask worn all day is not going to expose you to anything that isn’t already in your respiratory tract. The two are nothing alike, which means your analogy doesn’t work. Also, this is not about common sense. Science and medicine are often counter-intuitive and common sense does not equal scientific proof (if you want examples of how science and medicine are often counter-intuitive, I can provide them. Intuition is an important thing, but it has major limitations and is completely subjective.) Very few scientific breakthroughs or medical discoveries were made using common sense. Would you want your doctor to operate on you or make a life-changing diagnosis with common sense or with medical knowledge?
Furthermore, the air you breathe out does not stay inside the mask for long or people would be suffocating left and right. Any bacteria you breathe out would mostly collect on the mask’s surface, making it difficult to breathe back in. Even if you did breathe it back in, it just came from your respiratory tract, so how is it going to harm you when it wasn’t harming you all the time it was in your body? Combine that with the fact that people wear their masks for relatively short periods of time, then dispose of them or wash them after use, and it means that there is little-to-no chance of a massive bacteria buildup. It’s also worth pointing out that health care workers who work in COVID wings are double masked for 12-hour shifts and I have not heard of any complaining of health problems as a result.
From the report by the NIH about bacterial pneumonia and the Spanish Flu: The published reports "clearly and consistently implicated secondary bacterial pneumonia caused by common upper respiratory flora in most influenza fatalities," says Dr. Morens. The key words here are common respiratory flora. These exist in our nose and throat regardless of whether or not we wear masks. Masks do not cause them or make them more dangerous. They are already in our nose and throat, as well in our sinuses.
“The majority of deaths during the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 were not caused by the influenza virus acting alone, report researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. Instead, most victims succumbed to bacterial pneumonia following influenza virus infection. The pneumonia was caused when bacteria that normally inhabit the nose and throat invaded the lungs along a pathway created when the virus destroyed the cells that line the bronchial tubes and lungs.”
Bacterial pneumonia is very common after a bad case of the flu. When I was 28, I got double-lung pneumonia after a bout with the flu and I was not wearing any masks. I have posted this short excerpt from the NIH, but I really want you to focus on the bolded parts, because the details are more important than the gist here. I have even underlined bolded text for extra-extra emphasis.
The 1918 H1N1 strain of flu was novel and wreaked havoc on patients’ lungs, causing extensive damage to the bronchial tubes. Suddenly, the relatively harmless bacteria that normally lives in our nose and throat became problematic. With lungs severely damaged by the flu, this bacteria migrated into those damaged bronchial tubes, causing bacterial pneumonia for which there were no antibiotics to combat it.
The key takeaway is that the bacteria that caused the pneumonia already existed in the patients’ nose and throat just like it does in ours. It was not caused by mask wearing, which was still uncommon in the parts of the world most affected by the flu, like the front lines and barracks, where young soldiers often succumbed to the virus hours after the symptoms set in. It also caused massive deaths in Europe and Asia, where very few people work masks because…well, they were in the middle of the most violent and destructive conflict in human history up to that time, so wearing a mask was akin to wearing a raincoat in a hurricane.
Also, the many reports of people succumbing to the virus within hours after experiencing symptoms, and even dropping dead without any symptoms is another important thing to keep in mind. For these people, who made up many of the flu’s victims, they didn’t have a chance to experience the symptoms that led to the kind of lung damage that made a secondary infection possible.
The most we can say is that many victims of the Spanish Flu died, at least in part, because of bacterial pneumonia caused by flora that already existed in their nose and throat, which were able to cause disease because the lungs had already been so damaged by the flu itself. It’s useful to compare the way AIDS kills to better understand what I mean. AIDS weakens the human immune system to the point where an opportunistic infection of something as simple as the common cold can kill the patient. However, would we say an AIDS patient died of the common cold or that they died of AIDS? The same is true of these victims of the Spanish flu. It may have been an opportunistic infection of pneumonia caused by bacteria already present in their nose and throat that ultimately killed them, but they never would have gotten the pneumonia if they hadn’t gotten the flu first.
I hope you’ve stuck with me to the end. I know I’m probably not going to change your mind because this mask issue is more about politics in the US than it is about science and medicine. Still, I respect your willingness to respond to my post and I’d like to do the same. Perhaps, somehow, discussing these things with an open mind, in a reasonable way, will allow us to better understand one another and find some common ground on this issue.
No matter what mask anyone wears, or how tight it fits, if the mask wearer can breathe then they can get infected. This is how airborne viruses work. Period, end of story.
Not how viruses go airborne, Dr. Kildare. They are carried on water droplets; masks reduce the ability of those droplets to travel far from the person emitting then.
Not how viruses go airborne, Dr. Kildare. They are carried on water droplets; masks reduce the ability of those droplets to travel far from the person emitting then.
You make an important point about droplets, which is almost certainly the primary means of COVID transmission. Masks DO help to prevent droplets from being ejected into the air by the person wearing them, and being inhaled by people in close enough contact with an infected person.
However, studies have shown that the virus is capable of aerosol transmission under the right conditions. For those who want to learn more, Public Health Ontario has created a detailed analysis of aerosol transmission, which is available here:
The upshot: while aerosol transmission is possible, droplets appear to be the main threat for spreading COVID-19. Many studies show that surgical masks, when worn properly, DO help prevent transmission of COVID. I don’t believe that anyone has ever said they were perfect or THE solution, but combined with physical distancing, it can dramatically reduce your chance of being infected. A vaccinated person who wears a mask in indoor spaces crowded with people (ie, Wal-Mart) is decreasing their chances of being infected by >99%. If everyone who could got vaccinated and continued to wear masks for the next while when among people indoors, the virus would disappear very quickly and we could go back to normal for real. The problem is that some people think their individual rights are more important than the good of the community, even in times of crisis, even when they are being asked to do practically nothing. I can’t imagine what would happen if we faced an even greater disaster that required co-operation and collective action.
America’s promise of individual liberty has been twisted into something that it was never meant to be. Communities used to make collective sacrifices for the greater good all the time, but now it seems that a certain percentage of Americans think that liberty is “I got mine, yours ain’t my problem.” Civilization would never have come into existence or developed into what it is now if this mentality were prevalent. This mentality is what is going to lead America to its own destruction, and while many on this board blame Democrats, “illegals,” and a lack of homogeneity (wink wink), it is actually this attitude that is causing most of the problems your nation is facing.
Oh I get it, freedom to choose is for thee, not for me. ... So when employers, grocery stores, and virtually everywhere else one acquires those necessities of life require mask wearing, the freedom to choose is gone.
Yes, that is unfortunately the essence of it. If powerful entities in society deem one mode of behavior to be virtuous, wise, decent and upstanding, then they'll take great pains to promote said behavior, and to reward its practitioners with a sense of emboldened primacy. Such practitioners are indeed free to pursue their practice. But the contrary behavior, being deemed to be vile, foolish, indecent and despicable, will receive the reverse treatment: marginalization, restriction, condemnation and eventually a ban.
In sum, we're free to do things that are well-liked, and unfree to indulge in things that aren't well-liked. Mask-wearing may be a trivial thing (I disagree that it's trivial, but let's stipulate), but it's unfortunately part of a larger picture. Society asserts that it has the right, to promote some behaviors and to inhibit others, according to its reckoning of the "common good". Our freedoms, or as antagonists derisively dub it "free-dums", only exist, in this official context of the "common good". Traduce this "common good", and you can waive your Declaration of Independence or your Magna Carta as vigorously as you like... your freedoms will be quickly nullified.
I wholeheartedly wish that it were otherwise, but we have no choice. We never did. And we never will.
I am 100% in favor of your freedom of choice to wear a mask. The problem arises from your hypocrisy in not respecting everyone else’s freedom to choose not to wear one, while promoting lies justifying your double standard. That’s the reason for the pushback. You want to be a sheep, have at it. Just don’t try to be a herder. In other words, be willing to respect the rights of others you demand for yourself.
No, sorry, not true. I understand that there are so many “expert” sources out there making many erroneous and false claims, that it’s quite difficult for folks to get to the truth. In fact, I just read a very concise and well written piece by a physician at Loma Linda University Health, which would be otherwise quite convincing, if one were not overly keen in reading comprehension or critical analysis. In this piece, she basically “debunked” every “myth” that comprises my argument on the matter, yet at the same time, providing proof of the validity of those very points she’s trying to debunk, apparently believing nobody will notice.
Bare with me .... this is a little educational exercise in reading comprehension and logical analysis OK?
The Doctor begins by stating facts about the pore size of the n95 masks, (ranging from 100-300 nanometers) and particle sizes of corona virus particles (120 nanometers), oxygen and CO2 molecules (.120 and .232 nanometers, respectively). (I will add what she left out - water vapor is .1 nanometers, or roughly the same size as oxygen) Ok? Are the red flags not waving already? If not, they certainly should be, because this enormous range in pore size of an n95 mask appears to vary wildly with a tolerance factor of 300%, but more importantly, it defeats her own point of the mask effectiveness right out of the gate. I suppose, in this Doctor’s estimation, you aren’t smart enough to solve this 2+2 equation, but it’s really quite simple .... in the absolute optimal scenario of 100 nm, the mask could possibly block a virus (theoretically), however, anything less than that renders the mask ineffective, while on the high side of 300, or even dead center middle of the 100-300 nanometer pore size range, the mask is physically incapable of blocking the smaller 120 nm virus particle. And that’s the n95 .... it’s even worse news for the VAST MAJORITY who are wearing their Chinese made, designer cloth masks which have now become a new fashion trend for the trendy mask wearer. These masks are doubly useless in protecting the wearer from viruses, as common cotton weave might have a pore size twice that of the n95, or larger. On the down side, they may provide a false sense of security, with a net negative effect. But let’s not allow facts to get in the way of a good story, right? Of course, you don’t need to search long before finding very scientific sounding dialog claiming that these cotton masks can also reduce virus transmission by varying percentages of 60-80%, which sounds like a worthwhile gain, but is really just more double talk. I know it’s confusing, but that’s part of their tactics, as they understand that the more confusion that exists, the more likely people will be to defer to their authoritative opinions.
Then, she goes on to use the opposite argument when “debunking” the “myth” that the masks restrict oxygen levels and increase CO2 levels by citing sizes of the mask pores, relative to the much smaller size of the oxygen and CO2 molecules, which she then claims to allow oxygen and CO2 to enter and escape freely. This is what is commonly referred to as a straw man argument, because nobody is claiming that a mask will prevent oxygen flow in, or CO2 exiting ... if that were the case, you couldn’t wear a n95 mask for more than 5 minutes before dying of asphyxiation. No, the masks restrict volume flow of oxygen and CO2 (common sense/face value assessment), and the optimal flow levels required for healthy breathing will obviously vary depending on a person’s level of activity. I don’t think you need an expert to explain to you how you need much more oxygen flow when running a marathon, compared to sitting on the sofa watching Family Guy, do you? Facts are facts, and common sense is common sense .... masks do indeed decrease oxygen and and increase CO2 saturation. That is a measurable fact.
I’m not going to torture the point here .. the bottom line is, folks like you will read a piece like this written by a Physician, and regurgitate it as if it were the gospel truth, and serving as scientific proof that masks indeed work. Yet, if carefully analyzed, the piece actually proves the exact opposite.
Now, we have the circular reasoning ... you claim the masks sufficiently protect you from infection, yet you are fine with people being required to wear them to protect others (businesses requiring masks to protect employees). Which is it? Oh I get it, freedom to choose is for thee, not for me. And as I began this response, I cited the reason pushback is necessary .... the hypocrisy when it comes to freedom of choice .... we’ll guess what, none of us have the freedom to not eat ... if we don’t eat, we die ... not exactly a choice. Most need to work to generate income to pay for basic necessities of life, so we don’t have a choice there either. So when employers, grocery stores, and virtually everywhere else one acquires those necessities of life require mask wearing, the freedom to choose is gone.
Love this last part .... if you don’t like my version of freedom, you are free to leave HAHAHAHA. NOT IF TRAVEL IS ALSO RESTRICTED?? Huh?
Now to address the rest of this peeing on my leg and claiming it’s rain .... everyone knows your watered down version of reality is bull. While it’s true that certain regions, towns and cities did impose varying severity levels of oppressive lockdowns (depending on whether controlled by communist democrats or liberty minded republicans) .... the impact to local, national and global economies have been devastating and unprecedented. No need to expound on that further... whatever level of credibility you may have enjoyed at the beginning, you lost at the end here with this claim that the impact of lockdowns is exaggerated.
Wow! Did you completely misrepresent the Loma interview.
Here is what it says:
"The mask is quite effective at blocking the droplets you are exhaling, coughing or sneezing. The average size of those droplets is 1,000 to 10,000 nanometers, so by wearing the mask, you prevent the droplets from entering into the air for someone else to inhale. "
You make an important point about droplets, which is almost certainly the primary means of COVID transmission. Masks DO help to prevent droplets from being ejected into the air by the person wearing them, and being inhaled by people in close enough contact with an infected person.
However, studies have shown that the virus is capable of aerosol transmission under the right conditions. For those who want to learn more, Public Health Ontario has created a detailed analysis of aerosol transmission, which is available here:
The upshot: while aerosol transmission is possible, droplets appear to be the main threat for spreading COVID-19. Many studies show that surgical masks, when worn properly, DO help prevent transmission of COVID. I don’t believe that anyone has ever said they were perfect or THE solution, but combined with physical distancing, it can dramatically reduce your chance of being infected. A vaccinated person who wears a mask in indoor spaces crowded with people (ie, Wal-Mart) is decreasing their chances of being infected by >99%. If everyone who could got vaccinated and continued to wear masks for the next while when among people indoors, the virus would disappear very quickly and we could go back to normal for real. The problem is that some people think their individual rights are more important than the good of the community, even in times of crisis, even when they are being asked to do practically nothing. I can’t imagine what would happen if we faced an even greater disaster that required co-operation and collective action.
America’s promise of individual liberty has been twisted into something that it was never meant to be. Communities used to make collective sacrifices for the greater good all the time, but now it seems that a certain percentage of Americans think that liberty is “I got mine, yours ain’t my problem.” Civilization would never have come into existence or developed into what it is now if this mentality were prevalent. This mentality is what is going to lead America to its own destruction, and while many on this board blame Democrats, “illegals,” and a lack of homogeneity (wink wink), it is actually this attitude that is causing most of the problems your nation is facing.
Before I reply, I just want to clarify something. I made a mistake when I wrote that bacterial pneumonia was responsible for the majority of Spanish Flu deaths. The truth is, we can never know that. All we can know is that bacterial pneumonia was responsible for some of the deaths from Spanish Flu. However, no where have I found anything to suggest that wearing masks was what allowed for a secondary infection of bacterial pneumonia to take hold in people suffering from the Spanish Flu.
If you could provide some credible sources that offer evidence of this, I would be happy to take a look at them.
This reply to GuyNTexas’ post is going to be a bit long, because there is a lot to unpack. I hope he will read through the entire post so he can see why his position is problematic and wrong. I also think it is important for anyone who agrees with his point-of-view to read it through and consider my points.
First of all, let’s take a moment to address bacteria in masks. Comparing underwear to a disposable or washable mask is a false equivalency. What comes out of your butt is not comparable to the air you breathe out of your mouth, and even a mask worn all day is not going to expose you to anything that isn’t already in your respiratory tract. The two are nothing alike, which means your analogy doesn’t work. Also, this is not about common sense. Science and medicine are often counter-intuitive and common sense does not equal scientific proof (if you want examples of how science and medicine are often counter-intuitive, I can provide them. Intuition is an important thing, but it has major limitations and is completely subjective.) Very few scientific breakthroughs or medical discoveries were made using common sense. Would you want your doctor to operate on you or make a life-changing diagnosis with common sense or with medical knowledge?
Given the deplorable state of integrity of the medical establishment, I would most certainly want my Physician to rely heavily on critical thinking, intuition and common sense, because the problem with “knowledge” is that you don’t know if it’s accurate or not. As for the thing about underwear, it was humor, not meant to be a critical point.
Quote:
Furthermore, the air you breathe out does not stay inside the mask for long or people would be suffocating left and right. Any bacteria you breathe out would mostly collect on the mask’s surface, making it difficult to breathe back in.
First, this is a very bizarre question ... and my response is Why? Why would you consider it difficult to breathe in bacteria that is collected on a mask covering your face and nose? Particularly as compared to not having a bacteria reservoir strapped to your face? I’m just not sure you and I share the same reality.
Quote:
Even if you did breathe it back in, it just came from your respiratory tract, so how is it going to harm you when it wasn’t harming you all the time it was in your body? Combine that with the fact that people wear their masks for relatively short periods of time, then dispose of them or wash them after use, and it means that there is little-to-no chance of a massive bacteria buildup. It’s also worth pointing out that health care workers who work in COVID wings are double masked for 12-hour shifts and I have not heard of any complaining of health problems as a result.
You seem to be making a great number of irrational and not very well considered assumptions here ... 1) you seem to believe that because bacteria is already there, there is no harm in keeping it there, and recycling it, over and over. I don’t think that’s an argument you’d what to defend ... it’s preposterous. 2) you have no way of knowing how long people wear masks, what they do with them when not wearing, or how often they wash or discard them. 3) how could you even begin to assume what level of bacteria would or would not accumulate in someone’s mask, given the countless variables that you could not possibly know? That’s a ridiculous statement. The most obvious flaw in your reasoning is that different people doing different things in different environments would obviously be exposed to varying levels of bacteria ....i.e., compare a person working in a clean room at a microchip manufacturing facility to that of a sanitation worker handling garbage all day. You cannot know how often a person washes their hands, what the handle, how often the adjust their mask, what they do with the mask when not wearing it, etc, etc, etc.
And lucky you, it just so happens that I was just reading an article about face masks and bacteria. Imagine that. I think you might want to sit down for this one ....
A group of parents in Gainesville Fl concerned about potential issues in masking their children sent six face masks to a laboratory for analysis.... (the masks were freshly laundered before wearing between 5 to 8 hours before being sent off for testing) the report coming back was alarming ... 5 of 6 masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites and fungi, three of which were contaminated with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia causing bacteria .... half of the masks were contaminated with one or more strains of pneumonia causing bacteria; one third contaminated with one or more strains of meningitis causing bacteria, and one third were contaminated with antibiotic resistant bacterial pathogens. Other less dangerous pathogens were also present which can cause fever, ulcers, acne, yeast infections, strep.
From the report by the NIH about bacterial pneumonia and the Spanish Flu: The published reports "clearly and consistently implicated secondary bacterial pneumonia caused by common upper respiratory flora in most influenza fatalities," says Dr. Morens. The key words here are common respiratory flora. These exist in our nose and throat regardless of whether or not we wear masks. Masks do not cause them or make them more dangerous. They are already in our nose and throat, as well in our sinuses.
S T O P——S T O P——S T O P.
The moment you start citing propaganda from NIH, I’m done with you. The above is absolute nonsense at face value, as it appears to assume that the only bacteria that might collect in a mask comes from your own body, and therefore pose no threat. This is shear idiocy, and you need to ask yourself why you’d believe that for 5 seconds. The level of madness is astounding. Go back and read about the kids masks that were analyzed in a lab, and the dangerous pathogens discovered.
But it shouldn’t be a big surprise coming from NIH .... maybe you aren’t up on the latest news .... but the NIH is in very large measure, if not totally RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS ENTIRE PANDEMIC, and the TRAGEDY it represents. The NIH/Fauci funded “Gain of Function” research on corona viruses, first in North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and then moved to Wuhan China. This is no longer a “conspiracy theory”, but is a conspiracy fact, and it’s been all over the news. Of course, I was aware of this fact over a year ago, but it’s now out in the mainstream.
God almighty .... DO NOT REFERENCE THOSE CRIMINALS if you want to have an honest conversation. And if you want to become better informed, get some better sources.
Here is what it says:
"The mask is quite effective at blocking the droplets you are exhaling, coughing or sneezing. The average size of those droplets is 1,000 to 10,000 nanometers, so by wearing the mask, you prevent the droplets from entering into the air for someone else to inhale. "
I most certainly did not misrepresent anything ... but thanks for posting the link .... now, if you want to make an accusation, cite what I misrepresented, and show the proof!
I said precisely what she claimed, and explained how full of it, she is.
I used the figures she used, and highlighted the claims she made accurately ... and I defined clearly what was wrong in her conclusions.
Just FYI, viruses are about 120 nanometers, and are airborne, and can travel right through a mask. You cannot see viruses with your naked eye. Droplets of 10,000 nanometers is what we used to call spit. You can see spit with your naked eye ..... and Yes, it’s hard to spit through a mask.
Just FYI, viruses are about 120 nanometers, and are airborne, and can travel right through a mask. You cannot see viruses with your naked eye. Droplets of 10,000 nanometers is what we used to call spit. You can see spit with your naked eye ..... and Yes, it’s hard to spit through a mask.
Yeah, for single layer masks. But you can't run from the fact that multi layer masks are more effective than single layer ones.
I most certainly did not misrepresent anything ... but thanks for posting the link .... now, if you want to make an accusation, cite what I misrepresented, and show the proof!
I said precisely what she claimed, and explained how full of it, she is.
I used the figures she used, and highlighted the claims she made accurately ... and I defined clearly what was wrong in her conclusions.
Just FYI, viruses are about 120 nanometers, and are airborne, and can travel right through a mask. You cannot see viruses with your naked eye. Droplets of 10,000 nanometers is what we used to call spit. You can see spit with your naked eye ..... and Yes, it’s hard to spit through a mask.
Here is an experiment for you professor:
Go to your window. Put your hand through the holes in the screen. According to your "math", your molecules are individually smaller than the holes in the screen. So you should have no problem fitting your hand through them.
The part that you left out of her conclusion was the size of the exhalation droplets that carry the virus.
Yes, spittle may be at 10,000 nanometers. But the exhalation droplets are 1,000 nanometers (on the low end.) The gaps in the fabric of the N95 mask are between 100-300 nanometers.
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