Keep in mind that the filter surfaces (where the air flows through) of the mask may have spent hours collecting COVID particles from the atmosphere, since you’ve been continuously pulling contaminated air through the mask.
How do you get into a threat scenario where you would assume constant exposure to COVID particles in the atmosphere?
In Germany, we have an app that measures whether or not I’m near people who then get tested positively with COVID-19. While only ~10% of infected people actually use it, that gives an idea of how much exposure there is. In all that time I traveled in public transportation I was never exposed to a person who then tested positively.
This suggest to me that exposing myself to multiple people with COVID-19 in a single day is very unlikely and I don’t spend more then 20 minutes exposed to the same person.
People rarely talk, laugh or scream on public transport, so the risk is much lower compared to somewhere like a bar or hospital. Also, I’m talking about relative contamination levels. Even if you’re only lightly exposed for 20 minutes, the concentration of virus on your mask is probably ~hundreds of times higher than the concentration on your clothes.
Consider the volume of air you breathe in 20 min. 95% of the virus in that air is now on your mask. Compare that to the volume of virus that settles out of the air onto your clothes. Considering COVID can remain in air for hours, that amount is likely much smaller.
How do you get into a threat scenario where you would assume constant exposure to COVID particles in the atmosphere?
In Germany, we have an app that measures whether or not I’m near people who then get tested positively with COVID-19. While only ~10% of infected people actually use it, that gives an idea of how much exposure there is. In all that time I traveled in public transportation I was never exposed to a person who then tested positively.
This suggest to me that exposing myself to multiple people with COVID-19 in a single day is very unlikely and I don’t spend more then 20 minutes exposed to the same person.
People rarely talk, laugh or scream on public transport, so the risk is much lower compared to somewhere like a bar or hospital. Also, I’m talking about relative contamination levels. Even if you’re only lightly exposed for 20 minutes, the concentration of virus on your mask is probably ~hundreds of times higher than the concentration on your clothes.
Consider the volume of air you breathe in 20 min. 95% of the virus in that air is now on your mask. Compare that to the volume of virus that settles out of the air onto your clothes. Considering COVID can remain in air for hours, that amount is likely much smaller.