hundreds of thousands? that's nonsense. you haven't heard of hundreds of thousands of physicians. you haven't bothered to read any of the links to papers i've posted, papers submitted to peer reviewed journals. so i'm guessing your head isn't really in this, and you're kind of lazy about it. all you've done is sit on the couch and watch the tv. the good doctor says wear a mask.

the medical literature says masks don't matter. the guys who said tobacco was alright say wear a mask. there's a reason why doctors are not in charge of our personal health. thalidomide. vioxx. oxycontin. tobacco. etc etc.

where is my humility? I think you mean where is my obsequiousness. looks like you've got some to spare.

you mean medical experts like the ones who said smoking is good for your health? or the ones who gave us vioxx? or oxycontin? medical experts like fauci who hasn't seen a patient for decades? medical experts with massive conflicts of interest?

i hear what youre saying. but it's not very smart. fool me once - shame on you. fool me twice ...

first of all, if you think masks work, then why do you have a problem with other people not wearing masks if you're wearing a mask? or do you somehow think that paper and cloth masks are magical and only work one way?

you seem to hate people. do you have pets? do your pets wear masks? that thing called swine flu - where did it come from? covid came from bats? filthy animals? i'm not saying you should be scared of your pets. i am saying you should have more confidence in the immune system that nature gave you.

how old are you? almost nobody under 20 has died of covid. you have to go up to 70 and up to find people who are dying of covid in any number. in canada, only 74 people under 40 have died of covid. and flu - in 2018 97 people under the age of 40 died of the flu. this last year flu has disappeared. that means total mortality has not gone up, flu has been recategorized as covid. 118 in their 50s, and 392 in their 60s. canada is nothing special in this regard. all over the world, the average age of a covid victim is in their 80s.

up until this year wearing a mask constantly was only for people who were really sick. are you really sick? i hope not. but if you are, you should not expect the rest of the world to wear special equipment to protect you. you should be the one wearing the special equipment.

stop being so afraid. case counts don't matter. especially when the cases have no symptoms. they keep on saying the hospitals are full. but what are they full of? it's not covid. in canada there's less than one covid icu patient per hospital, on average, and for those not serious enough for icu - under 5 on average. hospitals are supposed to be 90% full in the winter.

seriously? i mean that comes across as a dumb question. why are you supposed to wear a mask?

• a. fashion
• b. make a statement
• c. hide the ugly
• d. contain bad breath
• e. rob banks more easily
• f. like a bra, but for your extra chin
• g. prevent transmission of a contagion

of a through g, which is a medical reason? the mask is not a medicine. it is not a drug. it is not surgery. it is not a vaccine. like washing hands, it is a procedure. actions you would follow with a goal of a medical nature. the test of it's usefulness would be in a series of randomized control trials. as opposed to a beauty contest, the mask is functional utilitarian in nature.

masks cause headaches. cloth masks are hydrophilic and collect moisture and breed bacteria. masks increase the rate of infection, not decrease.

with regards soap and water - you need to change your mask every hour. cloth masks are not recommended at all. medical people use surgical masks. they do not use n95 masks, typically, since those are one way masks, and they are extremely hard to wear for any length of time. n95 masks are reused, expensive, and fitted. if your n95 is not fitted it's not really working at all. the n95 mask is meant to protect the wearer only, it does not protect anyone from the wearer, as exhaled air passes directly out it is not filtered. surgical masks are throw aways.

with regards 2m vs 20m, none of that matters. what matters is humidity first and ventilation second. in dry air, ventilation only serves to move the virus carrying aerosol particles farther. in dry air airborne winter viruses have an r0 of 4. in moist summer air, the r0 is under 1.

• Wearing respirators come[s] with a host of physiological and psychological burdens. These can interfere with task performances and reduce work efficiency. These burdens can even be severe enough to cause life-threatening conditions if not ameliorated. Arthur Johnson, Journal of Biological Engineering (2016).
• When the N95 respirator was tested in use in 2010, the “dead-space oxygen and carbon dioxide levels did not meet the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s ambient workplace standards.”
• British Medical Journal notes that cloth face masks may INCREASE spread of virus: “This study is the first RCT of cloth masks, and the results caution against the use of cloth masks. This is an important finding to inform occupational health and safety. Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.” https://bmjopen.bmj.com/conten... A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers
• Studies show that headaches in medical professionals are commonly found as a result of mask-wearing, which is a sign of hypoxia: Just under 10% of the healthcare workers in one study experienced such severe symptoms that they were forced to take, on average, two full days of sick leave from their healthcare jobs, while 60% of these healthcare professionals “required use of abortive analgesics because of headache.” Headaches and the N95 Face-Mask Amongst Healthcare Providers. Lim EC1, Seet RC, Lee KH, Wilder-Smith EP, Chuah BY, Ong BK, Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, 28 Feb 2006, 113(3):199-202.
• In this study, researchers examined the blood oxygen levels in 53 surgeons. They measured blood oxygenation before surgery as well as at the end of surgeries. The researchers found that the mask reduced the blood oxygen levels significantly. The longer the duration of wearing the mask, the greater the fall in blood oxygen levels. Bader A et al. Preliminary report on surgical mask induced deoxygenation during major surgery. Neurocirugia 2008;19:12-126.

what a person without a closed mind would have done, is read the review past the first 4 paragraphs, about one page i guess, to the section titled Review of the Medical Literature, where you will find papers published in peer reviewed journals. i'll list the first few -

• the influenza journal
• the Canadian Medical Association Journal
• Clinical Infectious Diseases
• JAMA network
• journal of evidence based medicine

but maybe you just get the chills writing "fucking river cities reader" and "physicist tosspot". so you read in far enough to get your foam on, and tosspotted the rest.

but your last sentence is a puzzler. maybe you don't know what aerosol particles are? cause that's what rancourt was talking about. wrt to that, he points to the papers that show conclusively that the big snot balls have no effect on transmission. the micron sized aerosol particles are the things that are contagious, and are the things that pass through masks easily, and follow the flow of air in it's path of least resistance.

i gave you a debate between a philosopher and a physicist. both phds. the psychologist has written anti-mask debunking opeds for psychology today. the physicist has written hundreds of papers, published in peer reviewed journals.

the review by dr rancourt is a review. i would expect if you had anything useful to say you would have followed the links to the peer reviewed paper, which are listed in both the review and the debate.

the point about vaping is not the clouds, but the simple fact that the aerosol particles went around the mask. it's a way of making the air flow visible, and my point is that respirated air does not go through the mask, instead it follows the path of least resistance. but this part of the argument is for people like kyle johnson who do not understand the value of rct. that's the gold standard that rancourt points to. johnson seemed to think his models had more value than an rct. and i believe you side with johnson, in that the rct trials are of less value than various physical model tests.

as for snot to the mask. sure, i'd imagine there are some people, like you, who are happy to wear a snot filled mask. some people even eat snot. so this world is full of all kinds. snot eaters. snot collectors. snot sniffers. but you know, whatever bloats your boat.

sure, and in the 1950's you couldn't go in the store while you were black.

masks are a medical procedure. store owners don't have or should not have the right to discriminate on that basis.

a house is not the same as a store. you don't have to let someone in your house, and there are few limits on that. however, a store, while possibly private property, entails commerce and a commercial arrangement. different rules apply.

this is stupid. how did our species survive without masks? how is it that no animal has evolved masks?

i was walking around downtown a while back and some crazy homeless person spit on me. got me full on the face. i tasted that assholes spit. and i did not die. in fact,i wasn't even sick in the slightest. I jogged 5k the next day. no problems. so, fun fact: getting spit on is not a death sentence. surprise!

so i really think you guys need to step back from this ocd germ paranoia you've got going.

masks are not effective. it's not hard to find papers in published journals to show this is the case.

here's a review, which will have a number of links in the bibliography https://www.rcreader.com/commentary/masks-dont-work-covid-a-review-of-science-relevant-to-covide-19-social-policy

here's a debate, with articles on both sides, pro and con, for masks - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQyLFdoeUNk&feature=youtu.be

specifically, neither the paper masks people are so fond of, nor the medical masks, nor the n95 masks are effective at blocking the aerosol particles that carry viruses.

it's not just the size of the particles vs the fibre gap, it's also air flow which always goes to the path of least resistance. if that's not obvious enough, you can easily look up a video of somebody vaping while wearing a mask.

usage of the mask is also important. they're supposed to block the larger droplets, but seriously, who sneezes into their mask? Anybody wearing a mask is going to pull that thing down and sneeze into their hand or whatever. or face the consequences of walking around with snot on the inside of their mask.

except wearing a mask is a medical procedure and consequently nuremberg principals would apply.

on the other hand, if wearing a mask was a fashion statement, then numerberg would not apply. similarly your pants.

rather than your pants, i think a more applicable comparison is seeing eye dogs. many stores have rules about animals, which do not apply to seeing eye dogs for the blind.

coronavirus spread by asymptomatic people appears to be rare

who scientist Maria Van Kerkhove

https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=234570

there was a bit of a walkback the next day, but if you listen to it all she really says is she forgot to point to models which have asymptomatic carriers in a principal role.

it goes without saying, that models without a basis in reality are just fantasy stories with graphs

i found this to be a good walkthrough of the issue.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CBWKMDcjSlZ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

mary mallon had no symptoms, ever, and had laboratory tests to show she did not harbour the virus.

only three victims can plausibly be traced to her

her story is tragic. a cook, banned from cooking without any assistance in finding another vocation. never charged with a crime but forcibly imprisoned in extreme solitary confinement for the remainder of her life.