Can’t I just…turn the masks inside out?
Kidding!
But really, I don’t get it.
In: Technology
I think it’s because there is more than one “port of entry” for a virus. You can touch the virus with your ungloved hand (on a door knob for example) and then rub your eye and bam! you have a virus. Once you are infected, wearing the mask over your virus spewing mouth and nose makes it less likely that the virus is going to be on the door knob in the first place. Those flimsy paper masks don’t seem like the best protection either way.
Those masks do? I work in a hospital. We (as staff) wear them to protect ourselves. Basically the contaminated air droplets that the sick person breathes either (1) gets stuck in their mask or (2) cannot pass into our. Either way, they don’t pass it and we don’t catch it.
They’re far too porous to stop a virus but what they *do* stop is fluids. They stop droplets from your mouth and nose from contacting other people, and help prevent body fluids from entering your mouth and nose. Here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_mask](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_mask)
The way you *spread* disease is mostly by spewing out germs from your mouth and nose. A surgical mask blocks most of this.
The way you *contract* disease is mostly by getting germs on your hand and then touching your face. A surgical mask doesn’t stop much of this because if you need to scratch your eye or rub your nose, you’re probably just gonna stick your fingers under the mask.
The way disease typically spreads is as follows: mouth spews out germs -> germs land on surface -> hand touches surface -> germs get on hand -> hand touches face -> germs get into facial orifices (mouth, eyes, nose)
You can see how a mask interrupts that very first arrow, but doesn’t do much about the last one. It helps a little bit, especially if it reminds you to stop touching your face. And if someone coughs or sneezes *directly* into your face, it can give you some protection obviously. But usually germs don’t go directly from someone’s mouth onto your face, they usually take a pit stop on a desk, door handle, a dollar bill, a cell phone, a computer mouse. And then they get from there to your hand and then to your face.
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