BS: face masks required, beards optional

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: EBarnacle
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 03:05 PM

I am pleased that SRS's masks are quite comfortable, even though I had to adjust one of the two she sent me. Thanks, Maggie.
As she is not asking for compensation, it would be nice to make a contribution to the 'Cat, which brings us together.

Joe, I tried a commercial chin strap with my CPAP mask. It failed miserably after taking almost two weeks to arrive from the Midwest.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: keberoxu
Date: 26 Jun 20 - 01:22 PM

Even the state of Texas is coming around now,
but things had to get really bad there
before they would conform to what others are already doing.

SRS reports that Tarrant County
has now made mask-wearing mandatory.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 03:10 PM

Well, the Dr. Erin Bromage link timed out before I could get to the blog post, unfortunately.

However, what I did find was a decent interview
that Dr. Bromage granted a month ago.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 12:09 PM

Newport Boy, that is an interesting link. Thanks! Here in Texas they tried opening things up and a few weeks alter the COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations are soaring. The governor has reversed himself and suggested people wear masks in public.

In order to get infected you need to get exposed to an infectious dose of the virus; based on infectious dose studies with other coronaviruses, it appears that only small doses may be needed for infection to take hold. Some experts estimate that as few as 1000 SARS-CoV2 infectious viral particles are all that will be needed (ref 1, ref 2). Please note, this still needs to be determined experimentally, but we can use that number to demonstrate how infection can occur. Infection could occur, through 1000 infectious viral particles you receive in one breath or from one eye-rub, or 100 viral particles inhaled with each breath over 10 breaths, or 10 viral particles with 100 breaths. Each of these situations can lead to an infection.

Subject: RE: BS: Face masks and risk management
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 11:14 AM

thanks for posting the link, Newport Boy

Subject: RE: BS: Face masks and risk management
From: Newport Boy
Date: 23 Jun 20 - 11:05 AM

This is the best assessment of risk I have read - not limited to masks.
Covid risks

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: JHW
Date: 21 Jun 20 - 05:03 PM

I'm waiting for beards to be compulsary

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 07:43 PM

I wear a mask whenever I go into environments where I cannot keep my distance. It's only a homemade mask, but "sufficient unto the day" etc.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 02:14 PM

If you rub a bar of soap across the inside of your glasses, using the edge of a bar to draw a squiggly line on the lenses, for example, then use a cleaning cloth to spread it so it doesn't snow any more but it is distributed all around the inside of the lens, it does work. When I remember I do that. I am careful because I have various coatings that came on my lenses.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 01:53 PM

I haven't been out in a situation to need wearing a mask yet,
but will have to if getting a train.

I've saved, but not watched yet, a youtube clip on mask 'hacks' to prevent steamed up glasses..

Is this a big problem...???

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 01:37 PM

A mask modification to create a better seal in disposable masks.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 01:07 PM

In the balanced opinion of one medical spokesman I saw interviewed on BBC news,
plastic face shields are marginally more effective in general use than masks.
But both have their own disadvantages,
and can be rendered next to useless by incompetent users...

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Senoufou
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 12:40 PM

Husband, normally one of the school cleaners, is working at the high school, gloss-painting all the doors (hundreds of them!) for six hours a day. His hay fever is very bad this year, and the fumes from the paint aren't helping. But he's obliged to wear a mask, gloves and a protective apron, because there are a few pupils and teachers there at the moment.
He can hardly breathe, and gets home gasping for air. However, it's for the best I suppose, and he's very stoic.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 12:35 PM

Yet another good reason to wear a mask

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 12:34 PM

Most people round here don't wear masks. Simple as that. I'd guess that about a quarter to a third of people in our busiest supermarket, Morrisons, wear masks. The staff there are not obliged to wear them. Mask-wearing is not embedded in our culture and is not expected. The one place where I've had to wear a mask is in the medical centre, which it is my misfortune to have to visit frequently of late. They gave me one on my first visit weeks ago and told me I could keep reusing it. Despite that caution, social distancing seems an alien concept to the staff there, including the ones who have no need to get up close and personal. I gave my views on the limitations of masks in "that" thread, and I haven't changed my view that many mask-wearers negate the putative advantages via their strangely insouciant and complacent behaviour whilst masked. No need to send me a mask. I have two, one new, one second-hand...

I should add that I live in a place that has very low numbers of infections. Like most people I know, I don't know of anyone round here who has contracted the virus.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 12:10 PM

If there was any way of guaranteeing the parcel could travel across the pond (mail seems to be largely halted) I'd send you some, Steve. Are you not wearing a mask because you're not leaving the house?

We had a family birthday dinner in the front yard yesterday and didn't wear masks while we sat apart and ate and talked, but when we took turns at the back gate to visit the dogs for a few minutes we all wore them. Prior to our outdoor party I scoured the bathroom in case my daughter (who has a long drive home from here) needed to use the facilities; this was her first time in the house in over 3 months. She wore a mask and entered through the closest door to reach that bathroom, closed the lid to flush, closed the bathroom door when she finished, and I'll wear a mask to go in tomorrow and disinfect the faucets and wash the throne a chlorine cleaner. She goes to her office two times a week now and works at home the rest of the time. They wear masks at work, and the days are staggered so if people share office space they aren't there together. She's most likely of the three of us together last night to have come into contact with other germs, but in order to help her stay safe I'm willing to set it up so she could use the hall bathroom here instead of having to stop at a public restroom on the way home, where who knows if anyone was wearing a mask or how often it is disinfected.

The Texas COVID-19 numbers and hospitalizations are increasing, it correlates to the "opening up" that the governor (a Trump supporter) is pushing. I have several requests for masks and will be mailing a bunch today. I noticed at last night's dinner that the others were both wearing masks I made. My daughter sews a lot and has her own, but was wearing one I made from a bright Hawaiian shirt she wore in middle school that looked like it would be a nice outer layer. Since it was her shirt she wanted a mask from it. I make masks that can accommodate a paper filter being slipped in, and have studied what makes them easier to wear. I try to make them reversible, something I can do with the flannel or denim ones that don't have a filter pocket (hospitals were suggesting those thicker tightly woven fabrics as best for masks; I also use layers of cotton quilting fabric, those are the ones that get a filter layer). All of them have three layers of fabric. I've heard people complain about how commercial masks have elastic that is too tight on their ears, or that ties slip. I make some ties that loop, don't tie, and adjustable ear loops. There are a lot of home mask makers taking all of these things into account and accommodating requests. Another Mudcatter whose family member makes masks posted photos on Facebook last week and I grabbed screenshots of the design for her pleated mask filter layer; it takes a couple of more steps but would be easier to make than the design I worked out for inserting a filter from one edge. You can see some mask designs in the Victoria & Albert Museum's online project called Pandemic Objects.

What we know about making and wearing masks now is so different from what we knew in March when it was first suggested that we should wear them. These aren't doctor's masks, but then I've been to the doctor's office where they weren't wearing surgical masks, they were wearing disposable and because they're hard to get they wore them for more than one day. The homemade ones should be washed and air dried after each day's use. I use soap to wash it, I don't use bleach, just like I use soap to wash my hands, I don't use bleach. Alton Brown on the science of using soap and water for hand washing.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 11:24 AM

I don't wear a mask.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Jos
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 11:00 AM

I saw an old man at a bus stop, coughing away, and wearing a mask on his chin. What did he think it was for?

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Charmion
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 10:51 AM

The staff at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario boozeteria that we patronize wear flip-up face shields like what you see on health-care workers. They are the only masked shop staff in our town. I put this down to two factors: first, the LCBO is a provincial government monopoly that is absolutely rolling in money and, second, its employees are union members.

If only the staff at the supermarket were similarly equipped, and the people who stock the shelves at Wal-Mart and Canadian Tire.

But more and more, it seems that a mask is how nice folks top off their going-uptown outfits.

I wear mine so I don't have to apologize for my constant asthmatic cough. Otherwise, I would have to wear a button that says I'm Not Sick.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 10:33 AM

Right, and I figure I'll stop wearing one when the employees of the establishments I frequent stop wearing them. It's selfish and just plain stupid to subject people to your microbes when they're stuck somewhere all day trying to serve you and make a living as well.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 10:21 AM

I used to fit respirators, and you couldn't get a good seal with a beard. Anti-Covid face masks aren't supposed to seal, so who cares? It's just there to (mostly) stop the droplets created when one expels air with any force. They filter incoming to some extent.
But
The people who think they're impervious and immortal don't understand their masks are for the safety of those poor mortals in their vicinity.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 09:47 AM

and no problem fitting my cloth mask over my "Civil War General" beard.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 09:42 AM

I walked into my YMCA gym the other day, here in a district that is a trump strong hold, at a high traffic hour and discovered I was alone in wearing a mask save for one other senior so I walked out and now work out at a time in the middle of the day when it's almost deserted.

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Mossback
Date: 19 Jun 20 - 09:22 AM

I may not like the facemask, but I wear it. It drives some of my fellow patients nuts, but they wear them as well.

Thanks to you, and them, for being responsible adults instead of immature, whining Trump clowns. (or is that clones?)

Subject: RE: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 10:07 PM

Seems like I'm wearing a mask all the time nowadays, since I'm just starting to use a CPAP machine. I haven't found a CPAP mask that works for me, although they do help quite a bit. I ordered a full face mask yesterday, and I hope that works better. The nose-only ones make my nose sore and seem to restrict my breathing - and I get nosebleeds.

I don't go out much during the day because I live in such a beautiful area that I don't need to go anywhere. I can hike a couple miles without coming into contact with anyone. I have a friend who made me a nice mask, and that's what I wear to the post office and grocery store. It's OK, and seems safer than the bandanna I had been using. But the bandanna was very comfortable, held together with a rubber band at the back of my head.

I am very susceptible to respiratory problems, so I'm doing my best to stay away from people. I'm singing all the time on Zoom, and that has been absolutely delightful. Instead of going to singarounds twice a month, I can go five times a week. The Mudcat Worldwide Singaround has been a particularly delightful way to spend Mondays.

-Joe-

Subject: BS: face masks required, beards optional
From: keberoxu
Date: 18 Jun 20 - 09:36 PM

Me, I don't have a beard, but
I have nothing against faces with beards.


A funny thing has happened at the mental health clinic
to which I was admitted before the coronavirus lockdown.

Now that restrictions are easing in public places,
and even in "congregate housing" such as institutions,
this particular clinic is staying vigilant,
to the point of altering suggestions in the other direction.

During lockdown, "shelter-in-place" was the order of the day at the clinic.
Staff, clinical or non-clinical, who came and went to the clinic from their homes,
were required to wear masks at the clinic.
During that time, we in-patient residences did not leave the campus
and we were allowed to shelter in place without masks.

Now we patients can remove our facemasks in the privacy of our rooms,
or when eating or bathing or doing whatever in private;
but in all common areas, even on the clinic campus
and in the interiors of the in-patient residence,
we must now wear facemasks just as everyone else has been doing.

From the governor of the state where the clinic is located:
public assembly in closed spaces is limited
to ten persons per room. Period. Not negotiable.
Up until the present,
we were getting away with twenty-five people per room,
not necessarily masked;
now it will be ten people per room, all with facemasks.

The added precautions are in order to remain protective
while the public is getting out more
and there is more danger of coronavirus being spread.

I may not like the facemask, but I wear it.
It drives some of my fellow patients nuts, but they wear them as well.