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Worried about your #neckgaiter and/or #buff you& #39;ve been using as a mask cos of some headlines you& #39;ve seen? I gotchu. Tl;dr that study did NOT say that all neck gaiters are worse than not wearing a mask. I& #39;ll elaborate in the thread: 1/x https://qz.com/1891253/can-you-wear-a-neck-gaiter-as-a-mask-against-covid-19/">https://qz.com/1891253/c...
2/x First, the study itself: You can find it here: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/08/07/sciadv.abd3083">https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/e... published Friday, peer-reviewed and all that. It was NOT a paper testing different kinds of masks; it was showing that there may actually be another way to test masks.
3/x Why come up with another way? It& #39;s wonky: the big standard ways that groups like @niosh and the EU test masks—like N95 masks—require a lot of precise lab work. It& #39;s so hard to measure, a casual DIY mask maker can& #39;t do it at home, or even a small lab without the right gear)
3.5/x Here& #39;s one of the standards used in the US: 42 CFR PART 84 https://www.tsi.com/getmedia/53243666-aa99-4c0f-9ac9-eba0b0ffb4c1/AFT-002_2-42CFR84_Testing_Modes?ext=.pdf">https://www.tsi.com/getmedia/... Christopher Zangmeister from @NIST told me that its ROUGHLY shooting a measured amount of air and microscopic grains of salt at a mask, and then measuring exactly how much went through.
4/x A group from Duke thought it would be great to have a cheaper way to evaluate masks. They came up w one using lasers! They had a speaker wear different kinds of masks and speak a sentence + measured the ways the laser light refracted around any particles (droplets) emitted
5/x They had one person say one sentence 10x/mask, with breaks for water/cleaning. The box was ~ a cubic foot (so v small space). And look at these error bars. They& #39;re big! That& #39;s all reason enough for skepticism. But there& #39;s one BIG reason...
6/X ...The authors didn& #39;t compare this new method with any existing method! Should they have? Maybe! But that wasn& #39;t really the point of their work. This was a proof-of-concept paper that got blown up. I& #39;d hope they do a comparison of methods in the future.
7/x I& #39;ve written before about the importance of knowing how to read science news, especially during a pandemic. That& #39;s still true now—remember that each new paper is part of an evolving process, and can& #39;t replace all of our existing knowledge. https://twitter.com/katherineefoley/status/1247194779655471106?s=20">https://twitter.com/katherine...
8/8 It& #39;s conceivable that buffs break up larger droplets from wearers and turn them into smaller ones—which could potentially transmit Covid. But we just don& #39;t know that to be true yet. Anxious? Wear another kind of mask + maintain distance! https://qz.com/1891253/can-you-wear-a-neck-gaiter-as-a-mask-against-covid-19/">https://qz.com/1891253/c...
