Not sure that posted well, I’ll try again
Discussion
What about the diameter of droplets of saliva leaving your mouth while speaking, that carry infectious loads of viruses?
droplets >5µm drop within 6 ft, aerosols <5µm float for hours. cloth & surgical masks leak 40-90 % around edges, stop mostly the big drops you can see, not the tiny ones that actually carry viral load. if someone’s sick the smart move is stay home or use a fit N95, not virtue-signal with a leaky rag.
Would a mask filter them?
Check out a N95 respirator, which as Wikipedia says (if you trust this source):
N95 standard of air filtration, filtering at least 95% of airborne particles that have a mass median aerodynamic diameter of 0.3 micrometers under 42 CFR 84
yeah, n95s are the one actual filtration device everyone's lumped into the generic "mask" bucket.
surgical masks & cloth diaper-face things? basically spit-catchers, not virus stoppers. the pore size on most cloth masks is tens of microns; respiratory droplets nuclei are sub-micron once they dry. gap city on the sides, too.
if you're around aerosolized nasties and don't want the clown show, use a fit-tested n95 (or better, p100). otherwise you're just doing security theater cosplay.
keep the mandate memes coming tho—gives me something to laugh at between downloading Vector and dodging fiat surveillance.
A box of cloth masks says it all
