You are our governor, not our dictator. I am personally offended by your choice to force mask mandates on a commonwealth that does not want it. Your restrictions of our personal liberties and freedom have gone too far. I am 6 months pregnant and have been physically assaulted because I cannot wear a mask... Yes you read that correctly. You have turned good people into fearful robots capable of harming a pregnant woman just because she can't wear a mask.The problem is that the ones who are wearing masks and trying to bully the rest of us into wearing them by calling us selfish - are being much louder than we are (not surprising). Do you know what I find “selfish”? Expecting the rest of the world to wear ineffective masks that force people to re-breathe their own carbon dioxide, making everyone more immune-compromised in the long run, all because you are afraid of a virus that is no more deadly than what we have seen with past flu and pneumonia seasons. But by golly, seeing people wear masks makes fearful people *feel* better so now some businesses are being bullied into requiring their employees (and sometimes customers) to wear them.
Cloth masks: Dangerous to your health?
Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97%.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150422121724.htm
Masks may actually increase your coronavirus risk if worn improperly, surgeon general warns
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-coronavirus-masks-risk-trnd/index.html
Face masks cannot stop healthy people getting Covid-19, says WHO
No good choices: A mask may block out some pollution but have other ill health effects
A mask may also cause respiratory distress and become a hotbed for microbes to thrive.
Driver in crash may have passed out from wearing N95 mask too long.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/driver-crash-passed-wearing-n95-mask-long-police/story?id=70346532
Former neurosurgeon says masks are ineffective against COVID-19 and can cause health problems- "As for the scientific support for the use of face mask, a recent careful examination of the literature, in which 17 of the best studies were analyzed, concluded that, "None of the studies established a conclusive relationship between mask/respirator use and protection against influenza infection."
https://www.theblaze.com/news/former-neurosurgeon-masks-ineffective
Over 3 times the risk of contracting influenza like illness if cloth mask is used
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/#__ffn_sectitle
"Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97% compared to medical masks with 44%"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150422121724.htm
"Sweeping mask recommendations—as many have proposed—will not reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission, as evidenced by the widespread practice of wearing such masks in Hubei province, China, before and during its mass COVID-19 transmission experience earlier this year. Our review of relevant studies indicates that cloth masks will be ineffective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, whether worn as source control or as PPE."
“The SARS-CoV-2 is a large sized virus (approximately 120 nm in diameter),” according to a study. A nanometer is 1/1,000,000th of a millimeter. To give an approximate example, this virus is roughly 10,000 times smaller than a gnat. So the virus by itself is very small, 0.12 of a micron.
Will a mask made from sheets or clothes help stop the spread of SARS-Coronavirus-2? The first study comparing cloth masks to surgical ones was done while finding, “The results caution against the use of cloth masks… Moisture retention, reuse of cloth masks and poor filtration may result in increased risk of infection.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
So the science doesn’t support using the CDC’s recommendation of cloth masks, but what about the N95 respirators they want to have reserved for health care workers? “CDC does advise health care workers working with SARS patients to wear a special mask called an N-95 respirator. But even these masks offer limited protection from coronaviruses. The name of the mask says it all. The “95” means the mask, if properly fitted—and that “fit factor” presents a big if—can filter out particles down to 0.3 microns 95 percent of the time. (A human hair is roughly 100 microns in diameter.) Human coronaviruses measure between 0.1 and 0.2 microns, which is one to two times below the cutoff.” https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/coronavirus-surgical-masks-china.html
As stated earlier specifically the SARS-Coronavirus-2 is 0.12 microns, falling into the smaller size of coronaviruses. The larger ones from the past have shown the same results, “Since the coronavirus is an extremely small virus, it can pass through the pores of both the surgical mask and N95 respirator.” This is similar to influenza in size, which, “The main way that influenza viruses are spread is from person to person via virus-laden respiratory droplets (particles with size ranging from 0.1 to 100 μm in diameter) that are generated when infected persons cough or sneeze.” This affirms the idea that water molecules are too small for even an N95 mask to prevent the spread. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293953/ and https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp048051?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed
According to another study, “The N95 filtering face piece respirators may not provide the expected protection level against small virions. Some surgical masks may let a significant fraction of airborne viruses penetrate through their filters.”
https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(05)00911-9/fulltext
This gives evidence that even those masks won’t prevent this virus from getting through. A study confirms that it is possible, “A physician who cared for the wife of the initial case patient in Taiwan developed clinical features that met the criteria for a probable SARS case and was confirmed to be infected with the SARS coronavirus by the laboratory. He was considered as being infected by a direct line of droplet spread when the SARS patient had episodes of coughing while sometimes partially sitting up during the performance of a chest ultrasound and while supervising the intubation despite using a N95 respirator.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004550/#b16-jmdh-1-17