Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
One-Way Masking Works
If you’re vaccinated, boosted, and wearing an N95, you’re protected—no matter what others are doing.- By Olga Khazan, The Atlantic, Jan. 10, 2022
Florida, where I’ve spent the winter holidays, is now a severe-looking blackish purple on coronavirus-case-rate maps. I’ll probably get COVID any minute now, because my fellow revelers seem not overly concerned about keeping their excretions to themselves. The other day, one young man turned his head to the side and hocked a loogie into the sand a few feet away from me. Another took a big inhale from the hookah he had brought to the beach, then puffed a cloud of apple-scented lung aerosols into the South Florida sky and, as it happens, into my nostrils as well. Indoors, I am one of the few people who wears a mask at all.
Earlier in the pandemic, this would have terrified me because, as the 2020-era mantra went, “my mask protects you, and your mask protects me.” In the Sunshine State, though, “your mask” is often nonexistent. But some researchers now think that catchphrase needs an update. Though universal masking is still safest, my mask protects me too. And wearing a good-quality mask while vaccinated and boosted (which I am) protects me pretty darn well, regardless of what everyone else is doing.
If you are vaccinated, boosted, and wearing a well-fitted N95 or similar indoors, “your risk is extremely low,” says Joseph Allen, a COVID and ventilation expert at Harvard. “I mean, there’s not much else in life that would have as low a risk as that. I would qualify your risk as de minimis.” An N95 mask filters about 95 percent of airborne particles. But two surgical masks—one on me, one on you—filter only about 91 percent, Allen wrote recently for The Washington Post. Because most people’s masks aren’t perfectly sealed onto their faces, studies show that N95s reduce the wearer’s uptake of coronavirus particles by 57 to 86 percent. And that’s on top of the protection that vaccines and boosters already offer.
Ideally, everyone would wear masks indoors for the next few weeks. That’s not going to happen, though. The good news is that if you’re boosted and wear a high-quality mask, you’ll probably be okay anyway. Some experts even think people who are triple-vaccinated and wearing N95s can go about their normal activities. “They should feel pretty safe because the booster provides strong protection against severe outcomes, and even if infected people are present and releasing viruses into the air, a properly fitting N95 will reduce the amount you breathe in by 95 percent or more,” says Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech who specializes in airborne transmission. “The combination of vaccination with [a] booster and an N95 provides excellent protection.”
Earlier in the pandemic, this would have terrified me because, as the 2020-era mantra went, “my mask protects you, and your mask protects me.” In the Sunshine State, though, “your mask” is often nonexistent. But some researchers now think that catchphrase needs an update. Though universal masking is still safest, my mask protects me too. And wearing a good-quality mask while vaccinated and boosted (which I am) protects me pretty darn well, regardless of what everyone else is doing.
If you are vaccinated, boosted, and wearing a well-fitted N95 or similar indoors, “your risk is extremely low,” says Joseph Allen, a COVID and ventilation expert at Harvard. “I mean, there’s not much else in life that would have as low a risk as that. I would qualify your risk as de minimis.” An N95 mask filters about 95 percent of airborne particles. But two surgical masks—one on me, one on you—filter only about 91 percent, Allen wrote recently for The Washington Post. Because most people’s masks aren’t perfectly sealed onto their faces, studies show that N95s reduce the wearer’s uptake of coronavirus particles by 57 to 86 percent. And that’s on top of the protection that vaccines and boosters already offer.
Ideally, everyone would wear masks indoors for the next few weeks. That’s not going to happen, though. The good news is that if you’re boosted and wear a high-quality mask, you’ll probably be okay anyway. Some experts even think people who are triple-vaccinated and wearing N95s can go about their normal activities. “They should feel pretty safe because the booster provides strong protection against severe outcomes, and even if infected people are present and releasing viruses into the air, a properly fitting N95 will reduce the amount you breathe in by 95 percent or more,” says Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech who specializes in airborne transmission. “The combination of vaccination with [a] booster and an N95 provides excellent protection.”
(SNIP)
The caveat is that your mask has to fit well, and it has to be an N95 or similar—cloth masks offer scant protection against Omicron. “Well fitting” means you shouldn’t have any air leakage out of the sides of the mask, near the nose, or by the chin. If you wear glasses, they shouldn’t fog up. “If you breathe in, the face piece should collapse inward just a little bit,” says Lisa Brosseau, a consultant and an expert on industrial hygiene. “If you breathe outward, you should get a little bit of expansion of the face piece.”
More at link: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/does-it-help-wear-mask-if-no-one-else/621177/
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
I started wearing N95s everywhere except my house about 4 weeks ago.
No COVIDS for me, thank you very much. 
