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Medicine Government United States

Fauci Says CDC May Recommend Wearing Two Masks To Fight Virus (bloomberg.com) 322

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The Centers for Disease Control may recommend wearing two masks -- one over the other -- to keep at bay the more contagious variants of the coronavirus, according to Anthony Fauci. The CDC and Fauci discussed the matter Monday but the agency doesn't yet have the data to make any formal recommendation, he said Tuesday during a Washington Post event. Still, "it makes common sense" to increase protection, Fauci said. The infectious disease expert has previously endorsed double-masking given the new strains of the virus.
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Fauci Says CDC May Recommend Wearing Two Masks To Fight Virus

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  • by XanC ( 644172 ) on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @11:34PM (#61021750)
  • by CaptainLugnuts ( 2594663 ) on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @11:46PM (#61021794)
    How about trying to get people to wear proper fitting masks instead? It doesn't matter how well the masks filter when your exhalations go around it.
    • On Meet the Press this Sunday, Chuck Todd asked this question and was told two poor masks might even be worse than 1, because the added restriction through the mask pushes more unfiltered air out around the edges. He did not say this was certainly the case, but he said the much bigger problem for now is how the mask is worn, for example some large percentage of people don't even wear them over their nose.
    • Because that is harder. Fit is not easy to provide a simple recommendation on, but double-masking is likely to have an improvement beyond an extra layer of fabric. Fit might make a given mask improve from 20% effective to 80%, if you get it right, but a double mask might go from 20% to 50% more reliably.

      Personally, I think we are at the point where the government needs to be handing out masks of sufficient quality to people in high-risk settings (location dot activities). Blanket recommendations are not

  • by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:09AM (#61021828)

    It's sooo effective. Everyone should try it for once.

    • That's a nice idea if you're a tech worker who can work from home. If you're in, say, construction, or grocery, or restaurants, or many other industries, you kind of have to meet people in person.

  • by FeltLion ( 1289024 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:35AM (#61021880) Journal
    Doubling the mask only increases the amount of air pressure that will be exerted on the edges of the mask, which will then pass the air completely unfiltered. Unless you have a perfect seal on the face, doubling the mask only reduces the amount of filtered air that will actually be reaching the airways.
    • Staples. Use a stapler.

    • by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

      How? There should actually be less (ideally equal) pressure on each individual mask, even if the pressure is increased when both masks are taken together.

      You can understand why if you think of it as an electrical circuit where a mask is a resistor, airflow is current and pressure is voltage. Two masks is like two resistors in series.

      Another way to look at it, if you insist on counting both masks as one is to consider that the increased pressure from the air is compensated by the increased pressure on your f

  • by jklappenbach ( 824031 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:45AM (#61021894) Journal
    If I wanted to post limited blocks of monolithic, unformatted text, I'd use Twitter.
  • nothing personal, he's a great horse, but really, you have to stop this

  • by BarneyGuarder ( 44042 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:52AM (#61021904)
    Haven't we seen this before [theonion.com]?
  • by future assassin ( 639396 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @12:59AM (#61021918)

    are belong to us.

  • The general populace can't seem to wear a single mask properly or consistently now. What makes anyone think that doubling up would actually get practised?

  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @03:46AM (#61022192)

    With officials being just as nuts, but in the opposite direction...

    No, it doesn't increase protection. It increases profit! And the amount of constant suffocation.

    How about one *proper* mask, used *properly*?
    How about teaching your citizens the damn basics of germ theory so they don't do stupid things like touch the faucet with dirty hands, wash their hands, then touch the dirty faucet again, making the whole thing pointless...? Or worse much things, done to a mask, every day.

    I know *exactly* why and where the virus spreads. And it's not the mask. It's the completely clueless and braindead behavior of the user. Due to not teaching them how to think for themselves.

    Call me when they've at the very least watched that Mythbusters episode with the UV paint that spread EVERYWHERE...

    • Oh fuck off you ignorant twat.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 )

      With officials being just as nuts, but in the opposite direction...

      No, it doesn't increase protection. It increases profit! And the amount of constant suffocation.

      How about one *proper* mask, used *properly*?

      How about the richest medical system on the planet, NOT being about to provide *even that* to frontline workers 2 months into this pandemic?

      How convenient ignorant citizens forget what actually caused all of this bullshit t-shirt mask nonsense. With the amount of money in the US Medical Industrial Complex, every single citizen should have been provided a stockpile of N95 masks a year ago and nothing less. We wouldn't be here discussing such stupid shit if we had.

      I know *exactly* why and where the virus spreads. And it's not the mask. It's the completely clueless and braindead behavior of the user. Due to not teaching them how to think for themselves.

      Wrong. People do plenty to think for thems

  • by Joe2020 ( 6760092 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @05:17AM (#61022326)

    Since anal swabs are now sometimes used to detect the virus, why not stick a cotton ball up your anus to filter the virus from the occasional fart?

    • Since anal swabs are now sometimes used to detect the virus, why not stick a cotton ball up your anus to filter the virus from the occasional fart?

      You ended this statement, with something that actually sounds more believable than what you started it with.

      I'd be impressed if I wasn't laughing so hard. Thanks for that.

  • by Duvzo ( 221790 ) on Wednesday February 03, 2021 @05:30AM (#61022348)

    I always don my drysuit, hood, and gloves and find a 10L cylinder of air at 200bar gets me whereever I need to go and back again. I always do a safety stop 5m from my front door. Currently looking for a full face mask in a Darth Vader style.

  • You know when people should stop being seen as an expert when they are suggesting moronic ideas..

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