• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

COVID-19: are you wearing a mask?

Are you wearing a mask when going out?

  • Yes

    Votes: 148 51.6%

  • No

    Votes: 88 30.7%

  • Considering it

    Votes: 51 17.8%
  • Total voters
    287
Status
Not open for further replies.
Jim Lahey said:
And, personally, if I couldn't blow a candle out then I'd be questioning whether or not I could breathe properly, but that's probably an unpopular view.
Click to expand...

Hi Jim,

"Unscientific" I know. Since the lockdown the music scene sorta dried up so we resorted to sharing a drop box account sharing WAV files & writing tunes..
I didn't have a "pop shield" on my set up. My wife's little pop stockings didn't cut the mustard. So I thought...?

You could say Ive been "bench testing" the whole mask topic too?
It's all about air pressure percussion from certain vowels whilst singing..? It's all about cutting the "clout" on the grill from the "Ps" & "Bees," now just imagine if i sneezed.....


 
P, B, they’re plosives in linguistics, the name says it all. A mask should catch the droplets that are emitted.
And why, @MarkHaZ123, would someone wear a snood if it won‘t protect others? What’s more important, escaping a fine or keeping your income base alive and well? My question is deliberately poster-centred, not empathy-enriched.
 
I had to try an experiment. I used the standard IIR blue and white masks (10 for £5 Sainsbury's). Trying as hard as I could I couldn't blow out a candle from about 3" away. My wife tried with her cotton mask and no effect at all on the candle flame from a similar distance.
 
Fairygodmother said:
P, B, they’re plosives in linguistics, the name says it all.
Click to expand...

Thanx FG. The word I was searching for.
The. Gov. Guidelines regarding the "arts" in a possible live socially distanced music environment, is the levels must be kept to a level the audience can hear themselves talk.. Assumedly to cut voice projection to a minimum.
Bands can't even encourage audience participation with "singalongs."

Edit to insert link; https://www.gov.uk/guidance/working-safely-during-coronavirus-covid-19/performing-arts
 
Last edited:
Great. But the density and number of layers of cotton masks probably varies considerably.
 
Jim Lahey said:
And, personally, if I couldn't blow a candle out then I'd be questioning whether or not I could breathe properly, but that's probably an unpopular view.
Click to expand...
Well my IIR masks pass the candle test and I haven’t keeled over yet despite wearing them all day. Yes it feels different not overly pleasant I admit and takes some adjusting to but it doesn’t prevent me getting adequate oxygen nor make me feel feint from excess co2 etc etc etc. The more you wear them the less oppressive they feel and the more normal/bearable it becomes. We humans can adapt and learn to ignore a lot if we want to.
 
Face covering requirements can cut the spread of coronavirus by almost half, according to a new study based on data from Canada. Researchers at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in British Columbia looked at the introduction of mask-wearing laws in different provinces and found they reduced the number of new weekly cases by up to 46 per cent in the first few weeks after being brought in. They concluded that making face coverings obligatory indoors in early July could have resulted in up to 40 per cent fewer new infections by mid-August. Local authorities within the city of Ontario who made masks mandatory tended to report around 25 to 31 per cent fewer diagnoses than those who didn’t, the researchers added. ADVERTISEMENT


Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/11/face...us-cases-by-almost-half-13404141/?ito=cbshare

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/
 

Interestingly that study was pulled apart in a piece in conservative woman this morning https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/ignore-this-so-called-science-the-masks-dont-work/ lots of graphs with dots, I will let you make your own minds up.
 
hankjam said:
Like it when they mention false positives but never a word about false negatives.... when I was a screener I worried about the latter just a bit more than the former....
and then from there....
Click to expand...
With the nature of the PCR test though and the number of multiplication cycles that are being conducted false positives are likely to be far greater in number than false negatives. When policy is being made on the back of false positives then they are currently far more disturbing.
 
Can you evidence this assertion?
A false positive is a pain in most cases, occasionally more serious I accept - financially.
A false negative allows unchecked spread to people that might suffer serious/long term/fatal reaction.
So even if false positives are a significant thing (yet to be convinced but please try) the repercussions aren’t quite so bad.


Edited by mod in line with forum rules on acceptable language
 
Last edited by a moderator:
HSSS said:
the repercussions aren’t quite so bad.
Click to expand...

Decades of financial ruin.. ok that's not so bad I guess..

I'm not going to be able to convince you of anything however maybe avoid the mainstream media.
 
stu60 said:
Interestingly that study was pulled apart in a piece in conservative woman this morning https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/ignore-this-so-called-science-the-masks-dont-work/ lots of graphs with dots, I will let you make your own minds up.
Click to expand...

Edit (some info about Dr Will Jones: Will Jones holds a PhD in political philosophy from the University of Reading. He also has a Diploma in Biblical and Theological Studies.
The original paper is written by academics in the Economics department, does that make them economists rather than scientists? He has a PhD in Political Philosophy, does that make him a philosopher.

Ignore this so-called science, the masks don’t work.

That's the start of his piece, in something called "The Conservative Woman". I always worry about something that starts with a statement suggesting we all ignore science, even so called science. His last paragraph is totally inaccurate in that there is a lot of research proving the advantages of mask wearing. His claim that there is no evidence is completely untrue.
In July he said that Covid was "running out of steam" and four days later was telling us not to believe that there was to be a second wave. That's wrong as well. There's enough there to suggest that the piece he wrote telling us to ignore mask wearing should be read very carefully and compared to the many peer reviewed empirical evidence that exists spanning decades which say the opposite.
I highly recommend reading the comments to the piece, it's worth it just for the laugh, especially the randomised parachute trials. He seems like a pandemic disbeliever and although he is welcome to his opinion, he should have a better argument and not lie.

By the way, very pleased to see that Japan are doing so well. Interesting video from Dr Campbell. It doesn't prove anything, he doesn't claim that. Makes you think is the important thing.
 
Last edited:
Personally I think there's evidence on both sides. In the end you make your own choices and let the chips fall where they may. Just like everything else in life. No prizes for guessing my views, but then I don't expect anyone to change theirs.
 
The person who invented the pcr test specified that it was not to be used in the way it is now i.e. for mass screening of populations using differing 'spins' (over 35 is invalid) particularly when it is used as the sole metric for making decisions re lock down as it seems to be so that the only solution remaining is mass vaccination.
So false positives on a mass scale are a lot more serious than just the sheer inconvenience of kids getting less school or families not being able to earn any money for 2 weeks (the latter can hit the lowest paid very hard).
Sadly the media is drip feeding us constant stories to counter balance anything positive (Sweden's tiny infection and death rate, our terrible failure to hit Whitty and Valance's 50,000 infections target, 74 yr old obese man getting it and recovering, new effective steroid s treatment) such as a single person getting re infected (that might kill off the vaccine hopes) or pigs getting it (Swine Kung Flu I suppose) and passing it on.
 

Hi,

Got any links to the comment from Kary Mullis..? (Regarding the applications of PCR testing.)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…