Well, it may in fact work, but—you can also buy masks that have been used for decades to protect against asbestos and lead paint dust.
Masks that are designed for that usecase don’t have filters that protect other people from inhaling virus particles that you exhale. If you only interact with other people wearing a mask that might be fine, but if some of your interactions are unmasked such as with people in your household, it’s asocial to wear those masks in contexts where other people expect you to be masked because while you look like you are masked you have wents that mean that other people get your unfiltered air.
Even then it’s uncomfortable to wear those masks for social interactions and even if you do wear them more dakka applies.
I use a P100 mask and have recently taken to stretching a cloth mask over the exhaust valve—I figure that way my exhalations are filtered about as well as they would be with an ordinary cloth mask, while my inhalations are far more protected.
The quality of these filters is really good, by the way—at one point I was standing near a small fire in a trash can and could not smell it in the slightest, to the point where I was quite surprised to smell the fire after pulling down the mask to be more clearly audible on a phone call!
Masks that are designed for that usecase don’t have filters that protect other people from inhaling virus particles that you exhale. If you only interact with other people wearing a mask that might be fine, but if some of your interactions are unmasked such as with people in your household, it’s asocial to wear those masks in contexts where other people expect you to be masked because while you look like you are masked you have wents that mean that other people get your unfiltered air.
Even then it’s uncomfortable to wear those masks for social interactions and even if you do wear them more dakka applies.
I use a P100 mask and have recently taken to stretching a cloth mask over the exhaust valve—I figure that way my exhalations are filtered about as well as they would be with an ordinary cloth mask, while my inhalations are far more protected.
The quality of these filters is really good, by the way—at one point I was standing near a small fire in a trash can and could not smell it in the slightest, to the point where I was quite surprised to smell the fire after pulling down the mask to be more clearly audible on a phone call!