Bear with me here, I'm a little slow.
Let's look at our hypothetical mask that filters 50% of particles. Suppose I breathe a volume of air with 100 particles. With no mask, I have 100 particles in my lungs. With the mask, there are 50 in my lungs, and 50 on the mask.
I am sloppy about taking the mask off, and 10 of the 50 on the mask get on my fingers, and then I pick my nose and those 10 get transferred from my finger to my nose. I have now absorbed a total of 60 particles - but 60 is less than 100.
However you slice it, the worst case is all 100 get into your lungs - that *will* happen with no mask, and *might* happen with a mask, if and only if you manage to transfer every single filtered particle from the mask to your nose/eyes/whatever.
"You aren't filtering enough to prevent you from getting the disease."
There are viruses where it is thought a single virus might be enough to cause illness - ebola and zika, from memory - but for many other viruses the number of viruses you are exposed to matters, both in whether you get sick at all, and how sick you get. Are there hard numbers yet for covid? The last I checked, it was unclear for covid.
The notion that wearing masks might be a good idea isn't tinfoil hat nuttery. For example, the CDC is recommending them:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...coverings.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...ace-cover.html
The second of those pages cites its sources from the medical journals.
You're not factoring in at least two variables.
1) Introduction to the lungs isn't the only method of being infected.
2) Not all "entry ways" are equally viable to the virus.
I don't know enough to know the numbers. I am much more a "user level" knowledge base then a "researcher level" knowledge base. Maybe it's complete bullshit and you can't get it through your eyes or mucous membranes. If it's complete bullshit, though, one would have to wonder why the folks who should know better were saying that exact thing earlier. Unless, of course, we just write them off as liars protecting the mask supply. One would also wonder why hand washing matters.
Sorta around sometimes for some of your shitty mod needs.
I would point out that, according to my layman's understanding, a general masking-up policy is not designed to keep you from getting infected. It is designed to block transmission by preventing you from spewing your various fluids onto others. If everyone masks up, then fewer people get infected, because fewer people are transmitting.
Coronaviruses, as a family, require a medium to transmit without surface contact--an actual physical droplet (not an aerosol-like fine mist) that is inhaled, deposited on a surface, or lands on a person's hand before being transferred to their face.
Hence, you don't need any kind of fancy-pants mask. No, a t-shirt and some elastic isn't going to "protect" you, but that's not the point of everyone masking up.
Nobody tells anyone this, because that shit I just said takes a long time, is hard for certain semi-retarded segments of the population to understand, and people are generally self-interested prickmasters anyway. So it's easier and more effective to lie and tell you masks protect you or some bullshit.
Forget the mask- how many people are cleaning their phones on a regular basis? Especially while they're running their booger hooks on various unclean surfaces while Facegramming their shopping trip and Karen posting about the guy not wearing a mask.
"You win 100% of the fights you avoid. If you're not there when it happens, you don't lose." - William Aprill
"I've owned a guitar for 31 years and that sure hasn't made me a musician, let alone an expert. It's made me a guy who owns a guitar."- BBI
Everyone tells anyone this. We've posted this over and over in the thread, including posts by people who are experts. Some people, who are awesome people that I respect greatly and admire in every other conversation, just don't believe it.
Different topic:
Today, President Trump said that he is taking hydroxychloroquine, and then that he'd been taking it for weeks. That can't be true, could it? When we discussed it before, I thought it had significant cardiovascular risk in people like, well, the President.
Trump said he has been taking hydrochloroquinine for a couple of weeks.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52717161
Like he said, "stable genius..."When asked whether the White House physician recommended he start taking the drug, Mr Trump said he himself had asked about it.
"I asked him, 'what do you think?' He said, 'well, if you'd like it', I said, 'yeah, I'd like it.'"
Masks, like the springs found in firearms, are deceptive in their apparent simplicity.
My personal theory is that something>nothing, but I am open to correction.