Quote:
Originally Posted by RockyMountainMan
What you heard is not correct. Regular surgical masks DO NOT PROTECT you or any other person from catching a virus. Viruses are 1000 times smaller than the smallest bacteria. The holes in a mask DO NOT stop a virus from going out from your mouth OR coming into you mouth or nose from someone else. The statement that a mask protects others from you but not you from others is ludicrous and defies all logic if you know anything about viruses. How can a mask stop a virus from going out of your mouth but not stop a virus from entering through the same mask???? C'mon folks use some common sense here. Either a mask stops viruses or it doesn't...and it doesn't. If you feel a mask works, then by all means wear one...but you can't have it both ways. If it works, than you are protected from getting a virus AND you are preventing others from getting it from you. We can't have the heard mentality that you are somewhat inhuman if we don't wear a mask...they don't work!
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I believe the scientists and health professionals who recommend wearing a mask. According to the Mayo Clinic, highly respected in the medical community, a mask, protects the wearer's nose and mouth from contact with droplets, splashes and sprays that may contain germs. A surgical mask also filters out large particles in the air. Surgical masks may protect others by reducing exposure to the saliva and respiratory secretions of the mask wearer. To put it more simply, yes the virus is small, but it is encased in droplets or saliva, and the mask protects against those droplets should a person who is asymptomatic releases those droplets somehow. That said, one must be careful not to contaminate their mask.