Hey smart people, Joe here.
Bottom line: Masks work.
They are safe for almost everyone to wear, and the more people that wear them along with
adhering to physical distancing and other strategies, then that’s more lives we’ll
save.
A ton of people have watched my video clearly demonstrating why simple cloth masks work
to slow the spread of diseases like COVID-19.
And at 250 frames per second, it shows us exactly why masks work to slow airborne infection.
A mask can stop a virus, but it also sends a message: We’re all in this together.
But there’s still a lot of confusion and misinformation out there when it comes both
to wearing masks and the actual risks of getting infected with COVID-19.
So today we’re going to be addressing a few of the most common myths and misunderstandings
with scientific evidence.
[OPEN]
Let’s address some of the misunderstanding and misinformation
out there around masks and COVID starting with...
The word ‘FARTS’ appears on the screen next to Joe.
He looks at it and shakes his head.
Seriously.
I see this claim a lot, so I have to go there: “My underwear and pants can’t stop a fart
so how is a cloth mask supposed to stop coronavirus?”
Yes, we’re actually gonna talk about this because it illustrates some really important
points about why masks work.
These are the gases in a typical fart.
Most of them are odorless, but every flatulence has trace amounts of these other gases and
these are the ones that… shall we say make their presence known.
One fart smell molecule is less than a billionth of a meter across.
A coronavirus is more than 100 times bigger than that!
And these are the droplets coronavirus is ACTUALLY TRANSMITTED inside!
Remember: When people breathe out coronavirus, it’s ejected out in droplets of moisture
that are way bigger than the virus.
Wearing a mask catches those droplets, and protects other people from you possibly spreading
the virus.
Lemme put it like this:
If a fart smell molecule was a baseball, a respiratory droplet full of Coronavirus would
be as tall as… holding for zoom out… there we go: the world's tallest building.
I almost can’t believe this is a real experiment, but years ago scientists actually tested whether
it was safe for doctors in the operating room to pass gas, whether they could potentially
infect their patients with bacteria or other germs ejected from you-know-where.
So they had doctors pass gas over petri dishes with and without pants on… and pants were
enough to block any germs from growing on the dishes.
So even though your underwear won’t stop a fart, they’ll stop a s*&^%… that’s
why masks work.
Another claim I see a lot is “using a mask to stop coronavirus is like using a chain
link fence to stop mosquitoes.”
The idea being that the weave in a cloth mask is supposedly way too big to catch super-tiny
particles.
And it is correct that a single coronavirus particle is very, very small, something like
100 nanometers wide.
But again, these viruses are ejected from an infected person’s airway inside much
larger droplets, 50 to 100 times larger than a single virus.
Here’s the weave of a typical cloth mask under a microscope.
Compared to the size of typical droplets.
And here are some other commonly-used mask fabrics.
None of these fabrics will stop 100% of virus particles from escaping, but experiments show
that any of them give you good droplet-blocking power.
This isn't just about the size of the holes in a fabric weave.
It’s also about how the fibers within the fabric are layered and stacked.
We can see that by looking at the fibers in a medical mask.
It’s more like a rat’s nest than a weave.
And by layering household fabrics, we can get some of that effect.
So, a chain-link fence can’t stop mosquitos, but two overlapped chain link fences can definitely
stop mosquitoes if they’re flying around inside tennis balls.
Get it?
Here’s another one: Wearing a mask can starve your body of oxygen or expose you to dangerous
levels of exhaled carbon dioxide.
If you’re not used to it the way doctors and nurses and scientists are, breathing in
a mask can feel very stifling and strange.
But most of that is just the mechanical slowing of the airflow by a mask.
Just like we saw with farts, gas molecules like carbon dioxide or oxygen are thousands
of times smaller than the particles a mask blocks.
The amount of CO2 that might be hanging out in your mask is not dangerous.
This is the air we inhale.
And the air we exhale looks like this.
Yes, we do breathe out CO2 at a higher concentration than we take in, but the atmospheric CO2 concentration
is so low that most of what you breathe out diffuses away through your mask very quickly.
That’s just basic chemistry and physics.
And carbon dioxide is not always bad.
Breathing out too much CO2 too fast is actually why you get dizzy from hyperventilating.
Accumulation of CO2 in the blood, called hypercapnia *can* be dangerous.
But it’s not likely to happen from wearing a mask - even an n95, for long periods of
time.
And especially not when you pop on your mask to run into the grocery store or something.
That said, if you have a serious respiratory condition like COPD or other lung problems,
talk to your doctor about your mask concerns.
Or leave a comment on a Doctor Mike video…
I know he loves that stuff.
There’s also the issue of not getting enough oxygen, or hypoxia.
According to the American lung association: There is no evidence that dangerously low
oxygen levels occur from wearing a face mask.
And I’ve been wearing six masks here for 5 minutes, and as you can see from this fingertip
oxygen meter, my blood’s still at 99% oxygen saturation. A plus.
Go me. Look at that, oh 99 again. A plus.
Okay, I don't want anyone claiming I don't actually have 6 masks on.
1 mask, 2 mask, 3 mask, 4 mask, 5 mask, 6 mask
Again, wearing a mask may make it feel like it takes a bit more work to take a breath,
but it won’t materially change the makeup of air that comes in and out through the mask.
And speaking of breathing things in and out, you may have heard that wearing a face mask
will stop your body from being able to expel toxins that it needs to get rid of.
But, that’s not really how this works.
Our airways are not the primary exit path for the vast majority of your body’s unwanted
waste materials and byproducts and toxins, and neither is sweating.
That’s a common misconception.
Most of your body’s self-cleaning is done by major organs like your liver and kidneys,
which use special proteins and enzymes to break down and remove anything that is unwanted
or harmful to the body, and typically excrete it in your urine.
There’s a reason doctors screen your pee to look for stuff.
Your respiratory system is involved in cleanup but not because you breathe out a stream of
toxic junk.
Particles that make it into your nose, airway or lungs are coughed up or swallowed in mucus,
and masks are actually helping block that stuff in the first place.
Typically, the only hazardous thing we breathe out is carbon dioxide, and we’ve covered
that.
If you’re infected, wearing a mask isn’t going to make your infection worse.
Coughing out virus isn’t what cures you when you’re sick - it’s the virus’ way
of ensuring it infects another host.
A mask will help slow that down.
Next misconception: I feel totally normal and healthy, so I don’t need to wear a mask.
Ok, even if you feel healthy, you could be infected with the virus and be spreading it
to others.
Current estimates tell us that almost half of people who spread COVID don’t show any
symptoms.
They’re either pre-symptomatic, or in some cases never show symptoms, even if the virus
is replicating in their body.
Let’s do a little thought experiment: Say you got infected with COVID-19 three days
ago.
And then today you go and get a test.
With current testing backlogs in some places, you may not get your results for several days
after that.
And even if you get a positive test and immediately quarantine, that is maybe a full week that
you could be walking around, with no symptoms, potentially passing the virus to others around
you.
And new research suggests a lot of the pandemic is being driven by so-called superspreaders:
These are single, highly infectious people spreading the virus to dozens of people at
a time, and those people might not show any symptoms, EVER.
So just because the person next to you looks totally healthy, does NOT mean they aren’t
infected.
Ask yourself: Would you feel better if they were wearing a mask?
Well, they feel the same way about you.
If masks aren’t 100% effective at stopping coronavirus, why should we even use them?
Ok, first off there is pretty much no medical intervention of any kind that is 100% effective.
Even a vaccine, which most scientists and doctors think is by far our best strategy
for eventually containing the pandemic, won’t be 100% effective.
A good vaccine gets close, but nothing is perfect.
From the very beginning of mask recommendations, the idea has been that masks are just one
part of a bigger strategy that includes physical distancing, good hygiene like handwashing,
and staying home whenever possible.
But more and more studies are telling us that masks DO significantly reduce transmission.
Even if it's not 100%, it is worth doing!
Because it’s an easy thing that you can do every day, and when combined with other
strategies your levels of protection add up.
Ya know what, let’s look at some history for a second.
Wearing masks goes back to 17th century plague doctors who wore special hoods with long beaks
that they filled with perfumes, since at the time they believed that sickness was spread
by “bad odors”.
In 1905 a doctor named Alice Hamilton published one of the first studies recommending masks
after proving that surgeons were passing dangerous bacteria to their patients just by breathing
or talking during surgery.
But it wasn’t until 1910 during an epidemic of pneumonic plague in China that a doctor
named Wu Lien-teh first developed masks to be worn by both medical personnel and the
general public in order to prevent the spread of the airborne disease.
And this mask-wearing practice was adopted by many cities during the 1918 influenza pandemic
often considered the worst of the modern era.
Masks work, and we’ve known that for a long time.
I’ve seen some people claim that there are mask exemption cards floating around, distributed
by the government, saying you don’t have to wear a mask.
That’s fake.
Those are all fake.
The US Dept of Justice even made an official statement to clear up posts on social media
that suggest they issued exception cards because of the Americans with Disabilities act.
They did not.
Even if a post has the official DOJ seal, it’s not real.
Now, when it comes to masks and disabilities, most local governments have made exceptions
for people with legally recognized disabilities.
But even if you meet those requirements, legally it doesn’t mean you can do whatever you
want.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, A business can still turn a person away if
they are a substantial risk to the health and safety of others.
These potential impacts on disabled people are even more reasons we all have to protect
each other.
And just like someone using a fake service dog, using fake exemption cards hurts people
with actual disabilities.
Don’t be that person.
And finally this is one of the biggest misconceptions I’ve seen in response to masks and just
COVID-19 in general.
That COVID-19 isn’t a big thing to be afraid of, because the death rate is low, or because
you’re young, and COVID-19 is only really dangerous in older people.
This is one of the most dangerous misconceptions going around, for a few reasons.
The death rate of COVID-19 is thankfully low, or at least much better than it could be.
As of this video, across all ages, we see maybe 1 death for every 200 known infections.
And yes, we do see higher death rates among older people.
But imagine for a second that we take that 0.5% death rate and just let COVID spread
across the entire US population.
That would mean more than one and a half million deaths, and there is no way to call that good
news.
But the other 99.5% of COVID cases are not harmless.
This is a new disease and we have basically no data on its long-term effects for those
with severe or even mild symptoms.
While some people may fully recover, others might have permanent lung scarring, which
is backed up by what we saw happen with related diseases like SARS and MERS.
New York and China have seen increased rates in strokes, as high as 1 in 20 cases in some
places, and even strokes in younger people.
We are seeing reports of heart damage, pulmonary embolisms in as many as a quarter of hospitalized
patients, blood clots, and neurological damage, from cognitive impairment to mental health.
Some people – even young people – may never return to living their normal life,
even if they recover.
We have seen that this disease kills people under 40, under 30, even under 20.
And we still have very incomplete data on how lingering effects could impact children
that get infected.
Battling covid can knock you out of work for weeks, or months.
And most people can’t afford that.
This disease is a big deal, and no matter how young or healthy you think you are, you
are at risk.
Not just of dying.
Listen.
Everyone, including me, including the scientists and doctors and nurses out there, wants life
to get back to normal.
Unfortunately you and I can’t get into the lab and make a vaccine come faster.
But there is something that we can do.
Every one of us has the power to make a small difference in stopping this pandemic through
simple actions.
And one of those is wearing a mask.
Scientific models tell us if 95% of Americans wear masks then we can save tens of thousands
of lives before winter.
This (mask) is not a political statement.
The only statement it makes is that you care about those around you, and you want them to care about you.
Stay curious.