The Astounding Physics of N95 Masks

I firmly disagree with the opening statement made by Black Lives Matter on this video.  Racial inequities are not what is causing a spike in black deaths in America.  I did not have access to N-95 masks, but I took precautions with what I could find around my home.  Also, I watched the news and took notice of the pandemic spreading across the countries of the world BEFORE the president or the CDC stated masks would be wise.

Everyone has the ability to fold fabric or use a multilayered bandana to create a face-covering. This has nothing to do with race or income.  The question is...who is more likely to create face-coverings?  Who is less likely to make face coverings?  Who is more likely to wear face coverings?  Who is less likely to wear face coverings.  This is an individual preference and mindset.  I have friends of various ages, races, and genders who have opted for different responses to the pandemic.  I have noticed that my most vain friends and family as well as my most rebellious friends and family are the ones who do not wear face masks--or do not wear them correctly. That is not a racial or income-driven statistic.  It is a mindset and a worldview.

At some point, people have to learn to take responsibility for their health and their lives.  I did not have N95 masks in my home when this pandemic started, but I figured out ways to keep myself (and my family) as protected as possible.  I also used logic to make and wear my masks.  Sometimes, things happen to people because they do not take precautions.  There is not always a conspiracy.  There is not always some racial inequity in motion.  

Let's all learn to think through our choices in our lives and learn to live with the ramifications of those choices.  This includes whether you take the time to fold a T-shirt, add a coffee filter, and wear the covering properly over both your nose and your mouth. Take care.  Be safe. Stop pointing the finger at others.  Take care of yourself as best as you can.

How do Face Masks and Respirators Work? | Risk Bites | Andrew Maynard

How do face masks and respirators prevent you from breathing in harmful particles? As respiratory protection against coronavirus becomes increasingly important, Risk Bites dives into the science of face masks and respirators, and explores what makes for good protection, whether it’s a professional product, or a DIY cloth face mask. USEFUL LINKS CDC: Face masks and respirators: Understanding the difference https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/npptl/pdfs/... FDA: N95 Respirators and Surgical Masks (Face Masks) CDC: Frequently Asked Questions about Personal Protective Equipment https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-... https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/p... The Coronavirus Tech Handbook – Personal Protective Equipment https://coronavirustechhandbook.com/ppe CDC: Simple Respiratory Mask https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/12/... Paper: Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks: Would They Protect in an Influenza Pandemic? https://www.cambridge.org/core/journa... The untold origin story of the N95 mask (FastCompany) https://www.fastcompany.com/90479846/... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many thanks to Anna Muldoon MPH for suggesting the topic!

Here's what it looks like when you cough in a grocery store

Many people are wondering if wearing a face mask is truly necessary.

This video is for all of my community members who have stopped wearing their face masks (or stopped wearing them properly) while indoors.  

Put your masks on when indoors!  Help keep yourself and those around you safe.

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►Read More: https://bit.ly/2xyYU9a

SEE IT: Simulation shows how cough can spread coronavirus in grocery stores (April 2020)

Researchers in Finland have released a shocking simulation that apparently shows how respiratory droplets from just one cough in a grocery store can linger in the air.

Riskiest Places During the Pandemic

Riskiest Place During Pandemic Today’s show feature the findings of Dr. Oz’s coast-to-coast experiment, targeting the riskiest places to go during the pandemic to find where COVID-19 may be hiding.

How dangerous is the air around us? | COVID-19 Special

Scientists are still assessing how dangerous these doses of airborne virus can be - and what we can do to avoid them. Opening a window is one way to keep the air fresh. That's a bit more complicated in the winter, doesn't work in all rooms, and certainly doesn't work on airplanes. The aviation industry says cabin-air is sufficiently filtered and circulated. Some experts say questions remain. But by keeping the air moving with systems like air conditioning, are we decreasing the risk, or merely spreading it?

New findings warn of higher risk in airborne coronavirus transmissions | COVID-19 Special (August 21, 2020)

What does the latest research tell us about the spread of coronavirus? Do masks help prevent new infections?

A study by Berlin's Charite Hospital has found the risk of catching the coronavirus from contaminated surfaces is lower than thought. The bad news is the risk of droplets and aerosols is greater than previously thought. Aerosols are tiny particles, like fine dust. Virus particles can attach themselves to the aerosols and spread infection. While larger droplets can't travel far because they fall to the ground, smaller aerosols are lighter and float in the air for several hours indoors, spreading all over. Scientists are now certain that these are the main infection route indoors. That means talking, singing, coughing or sneezing can spread the virus when inside.

Black Light Experiment Shows How Quickly COVID-19 Can Spread | NowThis

I am so sick of seeing local people wearing their face masks on their mouths but not over their noses.  As seen in another one of my youtube video posts, excretions from the nose during breathing poses a threat in water droplets. No matter who you are...if you are a member of a community, it is your job to think like a citizen and protect your fellow members.  You do not always know if you are carrying COVID-19, and so you owe it to your community to be clean, be sanitary, and wear a face-mask properly.  If you cannot do that, then you need to stay home and let someone else run the errands for you.  

For the full Mythbuster's video, see below.

Coronavirus: New Facts about Infection Mechanisms - NHK Documentary

This video came out early during the pandemic.  I tried to explain this concept to my friends and family, but they often said I was exaggerating.  See for yourself.

Coronavirus: New Facts about Infection Mechanisms - NHK Documentary

The full video is available at https://youtu.be/H2azcn7MqOU.  The Japan 

Office Sneeze | Examining the Spread of COVID 19 from Person-To-Person in an air-conditioned environment

Here is a display of water droplets at work.

Sneeze travels much farther than you might expect

We are now 10 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, and even though I have explained to plenty of people the need for a mask while outside your home, many say that a sneeze, cough, or talking debris does not extend that far.  Take a look at these videos to learn why you need to be wearing your face-masks! 

The INCREDIBLE Sneeze

 STAY SAFE

High-speed video imaging colored to reveal the two main components of a sneeze show a shower of larger droplets, green, whose trajectories can extend up to two meters from the person sneezing, yellow, and a cloud, red, made of a mixture of smaller droplets suspended in moist, warm gas. Pathogen-bearing droplets can be suspended in the air for not just seconds, but minutes, and can travel up to 27 feet.

IMAGE BY LYDIA BOUROUIBA, MIT

4 MINUTE READ

BY SARAH GIBBENS

---

PUBLISHED APRIL 17, 2020

FOR ANYONE WHO grows anxious at the sound of a sneeze or a cough these days, Lydia Bourouiba’s research offers little comfort. Keep Reading HERE.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-sneeze-fluid-dynamics-in-photos/

Why to Avoid the Dentist (Unless its an Emergency) During COVID

Abstract

Background

Among several potential transmission sources in the spreading of the COVID-19, dental services have received a high volume of attention. Several reports, papers, guidelines, and suggestions have been released on how this infection could be transmitted through dental services and what should be done. This study aimed to review the guidelines in order to develop a practical feasibility protocol for the re-opening of dental clinics and the reorientation of dental services.

Methods

This study systematically reviewed the published literature and the guidelines of international health care institutions on dentistry and COVID-19. We searched Pubmed, Web of Science, and SCOPUS electronic databases using MESH terms. The recommendations identified were tested with a convenience sample of experienced practitioners, and a practical step-by-step protocol is presented in this paper.

Results

To the date this paper was drafted, 38 articles were found, of which 9 satisfied our inclusion criteria. As all the nine studies were proposed in a general consensus, any elective non-emergency dental care for patients with suspected or known COVID-19 should be postponed for at least 2 weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Only urgent treatment of dental diseases can be performed during the COVID-19 outbreak taking into consideration pharmacological management as the first line and contagion-reduced minimally invasive emergency treatment as the secondary and final management.

Conclusions

While the currently available evidence has not demonstrated a clear and direct relationship between dental treatment or surgery and the possibility of the transmission of COVID-19, there is clearly the potential for transmission. Therefore, following the protective protocols in the COVID-19 crisis is of utmost importance in a dental setting.

Keywords: COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Dentistry, Dental practice management, Dental public health, Infection control

Copy and paste a formatted citation from below or use one of the hyperlinks at the bottom to download a file for import into a bibliography manager.

AMA	Banakar M, Bagheri Lankarani K, Jafarpour D, Moayedi S, Banakar MH, MohammadSadeghi A. COVID-19 transmission risk and protective protocols in dentistry: a systematic review. BMC Oral Health. 2020;20(1):275. Published 2020 Oct 8. doi:10.1186/s12903-020-01270-9
MLA	Banakar, Morteza et al. “COVID-19 transmission risk and protective protocols in dentistry: a systematic review.” BMC oral health vol. 20,1 275. 8 Oct. 2020, doi:10.1186/s12903-020-01270-9
APA	Banakar, M., Bagheri Lankarani, K., Jafarpour, D., Moayedi, S., Banakar, M. H., & MohammadSadeghi, A. (2020). COVID-19 transmission risk and protective protocols in dentistry: a systematic review. BMC oral health, 20(1), 275. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12903-020-01270-9
NLM	Banakar M, Bagheri Lankarani K, Jafarpour D, Moayedi S, Banakar MH, MohammadSadeghi A. COVID-19 transmission risk and protective protocols in dentistry: a systematic review. BMC Oral Health. 2020 Oct 8;20(1):275. doi: 10.1186/s12903-020-01270-9. PMID: 33032593; PMCID: PMC7543039.

Visit the full article at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7543039/ 

Reasons to avoid public restrooms during COVID pandemic

Stunning images reveal what happens 

when you leave the toilet lid up while flushing

by Chris Melore

NEW YORK — If you’ve ever been struck by a water droplet after flushing the toilet, it can certainly gross you out. Now imagine that feeling multiplied by a thousand! New images of what’s really happening when you flush the toilet is giving nearly everyone in a survey incentive to close the lid...

Particles coming from a urinal flush “manifests an external spread type, with more than 57% of the particles traveling away from the urinal,” according to that study’s author. The spray hits urinal users in the thigh in just 5.5 seconds, that study shows. Spray from a normal toilet reaches higher than the thigh, but it takes about 35 seconds to hit a person.

A similar study also warns that toilets could even spread the coronavirus since research shows the virus is found in human waste. For the study, researchers created computational models to track the spread of aerosols. The model shows that the droplets fly about three feet above the bowl, and they can stay in the air for about a minute since they are so small.

This is a condensed version of the article. To read the full article, click HERE.

Personal Note: Some commenters on the original article page are claiming these images and statistics are made-up.  However, let’s be honest…we’ve all flushed with the lid of the toilet bowl up and we have at some point felt water splatter hit our pants.  Therefore, logic insists that there is truth to this article and its statistics. 

In your own home, everyone who lives there shares the same germs anyway, and so mask-wearing and lid closing are not as serious an issue within your own home with familiar occupants. The issue grows when you are using a public restroom, though.

Solution…simply close the lid on the toilet bowl.  If there is no toilet seat cover in the public restroom, simply stand back, use your foot to flush the toilet, and you will cut down on the direct spray.  The thing to keep in mind is that the water droplets containing bacteria and viruses would go airborne, and so you will need to make sure that you keep your facemasks on while in public restrooms.  Ultimately, try to go to the restroom before leaving home.  If you must use a public restroom at work or while traveling, simply take precautions.  If you must use a public restroom, you may want to consider using plastic gloves while in there to eliminate the need to wash your hands at the public sink.  After all, you could be washing your hands, dry them, and the contaminated water droplets land on your clean hands as you walk out the door.

Be Logical...This idea of public restrooms being a concern for health and safety right now is not illogical.  Consider the last place you visited.  Were the restrooms available to the public?  They weren’t for me.  I recently visited Dollar Tree.  While it has always had public restrooms on-site, since the coronavirus pandemic began, this location has shut down their restroom for public safety.  Let’s be logical.  Let’s observe what our businesses and neighbors are doing.  Let’s make wise decisions for our health.  When I protect you and you protect me, we will get through this health risk quicker.