It's not common sense if the masks don't work, and they don't. Common sense told us that.
That masks didn't stop virons was taught to me in grad school and it is what I taught my microbiology students for more than a decade. Outside this political fiasco that is still a fact.
During 2020 the 3M N95PM2.5 mask (BTW, the "N" means "non-oily environment, and the 95 means 95% effective at blocking Particulate Matter 2.5 microns (2,500 nm) or larger, which are more than 25 times larger than the 100 nm diameter of the covid viron. Since there were not enough 3M N95 masks available for the general population the FDA gave the KN95 masks from China an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization). However, as Wikipedia reported:
A search of Amazon for KN95 masks shows all are listed as "face masks". Now, this is to say nothing of the stupidity of making a mask out of a bandana or cotton shirt. Those kinds of masks filter little to no covid virons.
But, hand washing? The same CDC study which I linked to in a post above, gave more weight to hand hygiene but added that "the effect of hand hygiene combined with face masks on laboratory-confirmed influenza was not statistically significant." Remember, that study is based on ALL RTCs published between 1946 and July of 2018.
What I find really disturbing in all of this is why the most technically powerful and industrialized country in the world, after a year and a half, still can not manufacture N95 masks that do meet NIOSH standards. It is as if the PTB wanted us to use Chinese KN95 masks.
Lost in the firestorm over what Dr. Anthony Fauci knew about the possibility that his agency was funding research that might have allowed COVID-19 to escape from a Chinese lab was a bit of a bombshell: The nation?s preeminent infectious disease expert never really believed that mask-wearing was effective.
In an email to former Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell on February 5, 2020?as concerns over the new Coronavirus in China were just starting to make their way to the United States? Fauci assured her that wearing a mask was unnecessary.
'Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection,? he wrote. ?The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective at keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.'
A little more than a month later, he said the same thing publicly in an interview with ?60 Minutes.?
'Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks,' he said.
'You're sure of it'? asked CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook. 'Because people are listening really closely to this.'
Fauci was adamant.
'There's no reason to be walking around with a mask,' he answered. 'When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.'
Three days later, though, Fauci's advice went unheeded as mass panic took over when the NBA suspended its season and Tom Hanks announced he had contracted the virus. Masks started getting hoarded right along with hand sanitizer and toilet paper.
In an email to former Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell on February 5, 2020?as concerns over the new Coronavirus in China were just starting to make their way to the United States? Fauci assured her that wearing a mask was unnecessary.
'Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection,? he wrote. ?The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective at keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material.'
A little more than a month later, he said the same thing publicly in an interview with ?60 Minutes.?
'Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks,' he said.
'You're sure of it'? asked CBS News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook. 'Because people are listening really closely to this.'
Fauci was adamant.
'There's no reason to be walking around with a mask,' he answered. 'When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.'
Three days later, though, Fauci's advice went unheeded as mass panic took over when the NBA suspended its season and Tom Hanks announced he had contracted the virus. Masks started getting hoarded right along with hand sanitizer and toilet paper.
During 2020 the 3M N95PM2.5 mask (BTW, the "N" means "non-oily environment, and the 95 means 95% effective at blocking Particulate Matter 2.5 microns (2,500 nm) or larger, which are more than 25 times larger than the 100 nm diameter of the covid viron. Since there were not enough 3M N95 masks available for the general population the FDA gave the KN95 masks from China an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization). However, as Wikipedia reported:
KN95 respirators of China are expected to meet at least 95% filtration.[9] However, NIOSH found that some products labeled as "KN95" failed to meet these standards, some of them filtering out as little as one percent.[10] Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Health Canada require such KN95 products failing to meet the filtration standards to be re-labeled as "face masks" instead of "respirators",[11][12] when being sold in the U.S. and Canada.
But, hand washing? The same CDC study which I linked to in a post above, gave more weight to hand hygiene but added that "the effect of hand hygiene combined with face masks on laboratory-confirmed influenza was not statistically significant." Remember, that study is based on ALL RTCs published between 1946 and July of 2018.
What I find really disturbing in all of this is why the most technically powerful and industrialized country in the world, after a year and a half, still can not manufacture N95 masks that do meet NIOSH standards. It is as if the PTB wanted us to use Chinese KN95 masks.
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