Yeah, I just had a family member tell me that he was going to work while he’s pretty sure he has definitively tested positive for COVID. The symptomatic kind. This type of thinking doesn’t seem to be unusual among the people I know.
I don’t know how things are going to go, but people seem to have zero hesitation about causing super-spreader events if the alternative is interrupting their routine.
Not looking so good. I just don’t see how I don’t get infected in 2023 even if I take all precautions possible. If 20% of my office have active COVID infections in, say, February, how much does P100 help? I also prefer sporadic COVID infections for the rest of my life over perma-masking and no dating.
Thanks for the advice though. In hindsight, I will tape up the ventilation system in my apartment. It’s actually really gross since it’s in the bathroom and I can actually hear my neighbors through it.
Unlike disposable masks, P100 masks (found in the dust mask section of construction/home improvement/Home Depot/Lowes stores) are heavier and much less comfortable to wear for 8 hours. However I might be wrong about that because the structure of my face is unusual.
It might be worth it to look at the seal of the mask and see how sharp it is. A softer rubber edge, with a larger surface area, is more likely to be comfortable if you wear it all day (with a break every hour). I’ve worn 3 p100 masks total and two of them were pretty uncomfortable to wear for more than an hour. The key is to go outside, eat outside whenever you aren’t wearing it, to take breaks once every hour, and idk how cold it is in your city. It’s also hard to talk and be heard when you are wearing them. They’re an absolute must for crowded places though, and most people don’t know that the government/military actually have several capabilities that could theoretically allow them to halt the spread of the virus at any time, even at 30% of the population (especially when combined with targeted lockdowns), but the technology is new and secret so the odds of success are unclear. Furthermore, some of the strains might be mostly harmless and mainly give people immunity (like a vaccine), or might already have done so, maybe to 40% of the population for example. So it’s too early to tell whether it’s futile to avoid the current strain.
An elastomeric respirator or PAPR paired with N100-equivalent filters should provide the best available protection and should significantly reduce risk.
Here’s the reasoning:
You can’t get anything that can filter out more stuff short of using an oxygen tank.
There’s more recent quick-and-dirty evidence for covid and disposable N95s here. There might be even more such evidence, but I haven’t looked for it.
Elastomerics and PAPRs can provide more protection than disposable N95s.
Even if some tiny amount of virus aerosols penetrate the respirator, it would still be extremely difficult for them to actually produce an infection due to the different hoops they’d have to jump through (i.e., they would be extremely diluted, have avoid sticking to the walls of the respirators, and then have to reach the right cells and avoid getting stuck in mucus).
You could use a respirator until you get access to a better vaccine or other effective therapeutics.
Yeah, I just had a family member tell me that he was going to work while he’s
pretty sure he hasdefinitively tested positive for COVID. The symptomatic kind. This type of thinking doesn’t seem to be unusual among the people I know.I don’t know how things are going to go, but people seem to have zero hesitation about causing super-spreader events if the alternative is interrupting their routine.
Not looking so good. I just don’t see how I don’t get infected in 2023 even if I take all precautions possible. If 20% of my office have active COVID infections in, say, February, how much does P100 help? I also prefer sporadic COVID infections for the rest of my life over perma-masking and no dating.
Thanks for the advice though. In hindsight, I will tape up the ventilation system in my apartment. It’s actually really gross since it’s in the bathroom and I can actually hear my neighbors through it.
Unlike disposable masks, P100 masks (found in the dust mask section of construction/home improvement/Home Depot/Lowes stores) are heavier and much less comfortable to wear for 8 hours. However I might be wrong about that because the structure of my face is unusual.
It might be worth it to look at the seal of the mask and see how sharp it is. A softer rubber edge, with a larger surface area, is more likely to be comfortable if you wear it all day (with a break every hour). I’ve worn 3 p100 masks total and two of them were pretty uncomfortable to wear for more than an hour. The key is to go outside, eat outside whenever you aren’t wearing it, to take breaks once every hour, and idk how cold it is in your city. It’s also hard to talk and be heard when you are wearing them. They’re an absolute must for crowded places though, and most people don’t know that the government/military actually have several capabilities that could theoretically allow them to halt the spread of the virus at any time, even at 30% of the population (especially when combined with targeted lockdowns), but the technology is new and secret so the odds of success are unclear. Furthermore, some of the strains might be mostly harmless and mainly give people immunity (like a vaccine), or might already have done so, maybe to 40% of the population for example. So it’s too early to tell whether it’s futile to avoid the current strain.
An elastomeric respirator or PAPR paired with N100-equivalent filters should provide the best available protection and should significantly reduce risk.
Here’s the reasoning:
You can’t get anything that can filter out more stuff short of using an oxygen tank.
There’s some empirical evidence suggesting that elastomeric respirators have provided adequate protection for health care workers in a TB ward, whereas disposable N95s might not provide adequate protection in similar circumstances.
There’s more recent quick-and-dirty evidence for covid and disposable N95s here. There might be even more such evidence, but I haven’t looked for it.
Elastomerics and PAPRs can provide more protection than disposable N95s.
Even if some tiny amount of virus aerosols penetrate the respirator, it would still be extremely difficult for them to actually produce an infection due to the different hoops they’d have to jump through (i.e., they would be extremely diluted, have avoid sticking to the walls of the respirators, and then have to reach the right cells and avoid getting stuck in mucus).
You could use a respirator until you get access to a better vaccine or other effective therapeutics.