I want to open a store in Hong Kong.

In areas where Malaria is common or travelling to areas with Malaris is, it is over the counter.  Just don't take the fish tank stuff ....

How does one acquire hydrochloroquine "just in case"? Isn't it prescription medication? Is it sold on street corners by shady people who supply shady buyers?

Bringing this back to audio, is there a correlation between conspiracy theorist / anti-maskers and boutique fuse usage? National Inquiring minds want to know.

Maybe the mask you wear does not protect you.

bluemoodriver25 posts11-22-2020 5:35pmGlupson - as long as you know a mask does not protect the wearer at all. It might help protect others from your coughs and sneezes. It is REALLY important that you understand the difference.

Strange thing, when you are wearing a mask, there is a natural barrier that prevents your hands from touching your nose or your mouth.  You will have to use some self control not to touch your eyes.

There is a pathway through the eyes, but, as your eyes don't breath, the amount of air they are exposed to is a very very small fraction of that your air passages are exposed to.

tomcy61,854 posts11-22-2020 9:39pmAudio2design,

What are the odds on viral particles that are transferred from the air onto your eyes or from your hands into your eyes, nose or mouth?

I would offer you a lesson in statistics, but statistically I think that is a low value proposition.

Fortunately I learned how to wear a respirator so I find my N95 shop respirators leave my nose and throat dust free.  If I am working with anything nastier, the N100 painting respirator comes out. It's essentially  a gas mask with particulate filter.

N95 by the way does not filter virus either. The situation really is like I said, trying to stop a mosquito with a chain link fence. That a mask works at all is based on the idea the virus is never just out there by itself, but is hitching a ride on a droplet. The problem with that being droplets go down to vapor, goes down to molecules.  

Anyone who has worked in a shop as I have, worn respirators as I have, will know perfectly well how your nose and throat gets plenty of dust. This is with filters many orders of magnitude better than the masks we are being forced to wear.  

For all those anti-maskers in the crowd, YES YOU!  Listen, and listen good. I am going to give you a little lesson in melt-blown plastics, statistics, and viral transfer.

Let's starts with melt-blown plastics. One of the advantages of melt-blown plastics is that they have electrostatic properties. Even breath moist, they still have electrostatic properties. That means they are able to attract particles to them.

Let's go on to filtering.  When a mask says it can filter 95% of all particles at 0.3um, that does not mean that every particle smaller than 0.3um passes through. In fact, even at 0.15um, a significant number of particles are stopped (see above). In fact, N95 respirators have been shown to very effectively filter down even as low as 10nm due to electrostatic charge. That works not as well  up in the 40-80nm range, mechanical means takes over and it gets better again.


Miller is correct though, you need a good fit. I find for most people, the KN95 and N95 cone filters fit their face better than the 3M filters. If you are a guy, SHAVE!  Just do it and stop complaining. You beard, moustache, etc. is not more important than your health or someone else's.  Even without a perfect fit, most of your breath will still pass through the mask, unless you have a really poor fit.


Viral transfer.  Yes, it is true that a single viral particle can infect, you, but odds are, most single viral particles will not. Your immune system even without specific defences still has general defences for intruders and the virus does not infect all cell types, but certain cell types and it has to land on and infect one.  A larger droplet, which masks will filter most, contains orders of magnitude more viral particles, as well as a carrier (water) that offers protection and longevity increasing viral transfer potential.

Now for that statistics lesson. Let's say the odds of a single viral particle causing an infection are 1/100. Now, if you are exposed 100 virus particles, that does not mean you get infected. It means the odds of being infected are about 63%.  Now if someone else wears a mask, especially a half decent one, that number drops to say 25 particles (and maybe less).  Now your odds of being infected are only 22%.  If you have a good mask, you can reduce that by a further 75%, so now there is only 6 particles that get into your body.  Your odds of being infected is now 5.85%.

You have to be really really bad at math to want your odds of infection to be 63% instead of 5.85%.

Do you go around shaking hands with people at Walmart?  Does a mask get in the way of touching your hands to your mouth and nose? (Yes).  Are the eyes very small compared to the surface area and air movement of our airways (yes).  This is a statistics thing. We don't need to prevent every infection, we just need to prevent enough that the cases go down, not up.  Have you heard of any super-spreader events where masks were worn? I have not.