I think you’re misunderstanding. The pitch here is to buy it now, not to wear it now. If there’s another serious pandemic, wearing a slightly larger mask isn’t going to cost many weirdness points.
TBF weirdness points did prevent me from wearing my fancy EnvoPro on my last flight, and sure enough I caught a cold, probably from the flight—so for that purpose a disposable would’ve been better.
The flexible fitted masks are probably far better than the disposable masks. Some studies indicated that disposables barely do anything, because they don’t seal around the nose for many people. They work when fitted carefully by professional nurses in hospitals.
During the last pandemic people were sometimes not allowed to wear reusable respirators, but required to drop down to N95. This is pretty strong evidence that people think they are weird.
All the cases I can think of were for valved masks in situations that required everyone to be wearing unvalved masks; is that also what you’re thinking about?
During the pandemic, the main function of the cheap masks was probably to protect other people a bit if you were infected, or even make them feel less scared (like airport security). They probably helped a bit over no mask.
A badly fitting disposable mask probably isn’t going to do too much against an airborne pathogen if you are surrounded by it in sufficient quantity, but maybe it stopped the pathogen being in the air as much / stopped people touching their faces etc, or the masks made people feel safe and like they were doing something.
Proper respirators don’t tend to filter exhaled air (so may let more nasties out easier) and may make people feel scared as they are anti security-theatre. You are actually well protected if they fit you properly but they would appear make other people unhappy / scared if they don’t have one.
If there’s another serious pandemic, wearing a slightly larger mask isn’t going to cost many weirdness points.
I don’t know, I felt too awkward to wear a big brightly colored respirator during COVID, even taking into account that I’m a weird guy (I walk around barefoot in cities, I post here) and I was making substantial sacrifices to avoid infection (isolating with my household for over a year). If it were clearly much worse than COVID I think it would be different, but in some cases (ex: a stealth pathogen) there might be a large difference between how worried I was and how I expected others to view it.
I think you’re misunderstanding. The pitch here is to buy it now, not to wear it now. If there’s another serious pandemic, wearing a slightly larger mask isn’t going to cost many weirdness points.
TBF weirdness points did prevent me from wearing my fancy EnvoPro on my last flight, and sure enough I caught a cold, probably from the flight—so for that purpose a disposable would’ve been better.
The flexible fitted masks are probably far better than the disposable masks. Some studies indicated that disposables barely do anything, because they don’t seal around the nose for many people. They work when fitted carefully by professional nurses in hospitals.
During the last pandemic people were sometimes not allowed to wear reusable respirators, but required to drop down to N95. This is pretty strong evidence that people think they are weird.
All the cases I can think of were for valved masks in situations that required everyone to be wearing unvalved masks; is that also what you’re thinking about?
During the pandemic, the main function of the cheap masks was probably to protect other people a bit if you were infected, or even make them feel less scared (like airport security). They probably helped a bit over no mask.
A badly fitting disposable mask probably isn’t going to do too much against an airborne pathogen if you are surrounded by it in sufficient quantity, but maybe it stopped the pathogen being in the air as much / stopped people touching their faces etc, or the masks made people feel safe and like they were doing something.
Proper respirators don’t tend to filter exhaled air (so may let more nasties out easier) and may make people feel scared as they are anti security-theatre. You are actually well protected if they fit you properly but they would appear make other people unhappy / scared if they don’t have one.
I don’t know, I felt too awkward to wear a big brightly colored respirator during COVID, even taking into account that I’m a weird guy (I walk around barefoot in cities, I post here) and I was making substantial sacrifices to avoid infection (isolating with my household for over a year). If it were clearly much worse than COVID I think it would be different, but in some cases (ex: a stealth pathogen) there might be a large difference between how worried I was and how I expected others to view it.