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Originally Posted by jedalton
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I read the article all the way through. It seems sober and balanced. Some of the points about masks making it harder to breathe may be overstated, as masks aren’t always worn for long. The point about wearing dirty or wet masks makes sense. More importantly, the article cites many scholarly medical articles from sound sources. I read half a dozen of those and learned from them.
Still, when people exhale, aerosolized microbes come out. That is thoroughly documented. They can be cultured and grown. Perhaps some studies have found that these can’t pass to others, but I don’t want to exhale microbes onto others, and I don’t want them to exhale them onto me. What else are we too do? One claim in the article is that in the operating room, it’s clothes that spread contamination into wounds, rather than breath, so gowns are necessary, but not masks. Okay. But what are the implications? Should we leave our masks at home and instead walk around wearing sterile gowns so we don’t shed viruses onto others from our microbe-laden clothing, even though our breath isn’t a problem? It’s problematic.
I plan to continue wearing a mask when I’m around people, changed quite frequently, and to wear a new pair of surgical gloves when I am in a store, and to not eat in restaurants if the employees are not wearing masks and gloves. I’d really rather not catch this.