Why can you still smell things wearing an effective #mask?
You can #smell some nasty things like #smoke and rotten eggs even with fit tested #N95#respirators which block tiny viruses/bacteria because the smell molecules have atomic masses that are 17 million times less than a #virus . 🧵 1/
Fit Testing to ensure a good seal on your mask [Part 1]
This thread explains what #mask#fit#testing is (#qualitative and #quantitative), why it is important, and my testing experience with some real-world results of various types of masks including NIOSH #N95 and ear loop. 🧵 1/
Everyone at home is sick with fevers & coughs except me today. It would be completely irresponsible & a dereliction of duty for me as a close contact for whatever it is my family are carrying to not reduce the potential exposure to my patients by 100 fold by wearing a fit-tested particulate filtering respirator whilst at work.
This is a permanent change to my practice & should be for all healthcare workers going forward. #MasksWork#N95#COVID19#IPC#infectiousdisease#infectionprevention
This video demonstrates how well fit-tested respirators work as source control vs no masks vs loose fitting medical masks.
No complicated modelling required.
We can achieve higher levels of risk reduction by having our healthcare workers wear these when looking after vulnerable patients, particularly at times where staff are at higher risk of infection (recently symptomatic, close contact of someone unwell at home, or high community prevalence)
Screenshots in the next post. #N95#MasksWork
Walking through several busy airport terminals yesterday filled with coughing and sneezing people, and every time I saw someone with an #N95 mask (maybe 1 in every 250 people) I thought to myself: wow, that is another smart and independent thinker! #covid#travel
Impulse buy of the week. $7.50 plus shipping for a bazillion good quality #N95 masks. 50 cents a box, originally $38+. Dunno if I will use them all, but I can pass extras out to neighbors next time we have wildfire smoke (hopefully, not anytime soon).
More people died in the US yesterday from COVID-19 than died in the wildfires in Hawaii. Please take care out there and make sure you wear your N95 mask or other respirator when you're around other people.
Two days ago, I went to an especially dangerous place, with an #Elastomeric#N95 and special prescription glasses designed to keep surrounding air out of my eyes. I snorted not one but two different kinds of nasal sprays immediately after, and gargled with CPC mouthwash.
There I wound up closer to an unmasked person who had obviously been sick than I’d been since 2020. Sniffles and throat clearing, and standing right next to me.
Wow. Now I see what all the fuss is about. Just purchased a case of #n95#3M#aura respirators for the local mask distro, had been hearing folks simply raving about these in various chats, texts, etc., so I finally tried one on. These are really comfortable and seal really well compared with a half dozen other N95 brands I've tried, including my fave Benehal black.
Why for the love of aerosol physics do they not have these in Aura masks in black yet?!!
Today a theatre nurse instructed a surgeon to swap out of a medical mask to an N95 when the surgeon admitted to having tonsillitis. Great to see the patient advocacy and understanding that fit tested respirators protect patients.
This should be the standard going forward.
The reason people don't get that Covid lingers in the air like cigarette smoke is because most places don't allow smoking indoors anymore.
The analogy we should be using is Covid Lingers in the Air like Pee Lingers in a Swimming Pool. Every room is a pool & every unmasked person you see is a potential Pool Pee-er. The more unmasked people, the greater the risk of pee, but it only takes one going pee & there's pee in the whole pool for the rest of the day. Get it now? #Covid#MaskUp#N95
Some people consider the breathability of N95s to be a benefit, but considering that it manages to fog-up my glasses (the design was really not made with masks in mind and it shows, I'll get different ones next time) anyway (if to a much lesser degree than masks which don't seal on my face, but the top still breathes as much as the rest of it), I find proper reusable respirators do much better at completely doing away with the fogging-up issue.
Speaking of #CovidIsNotOver can anyone recommend a good #N99 mask? Preferably black and menacing, in keeping with my whole mad-scientist-supervillain running gag
My #N95 mask with carbon filters has served me well enough for the past 3 years, but the elastic bands and velcro strap are on their last legs; and since so few people are respecting my personal space in public, and pollution in Toronto is getting a lot worse, I figure I should upgrade with the new mask
(I haven’t gotten #COVID once and even though I’m fully vaccinated, I sure as hell don’t want to get it now—the new variants just keep getting worse)
I think we'd best have a conversation about mask efficacy in the context of time-to-infection, viral load and other highly-speculative estimations that have been proffered over the course of the pandemic thus far.
You cannot build a rock-solid scientific model on top of such things.
Since Twitter is not visible unless you have an account, full text below. Links to the source in the final thread
"New study in #JAMA Network Open: Testing the limits of #N95 fit through extensive re-donning and re-use in medical settings.
Deep dive: 🔥🔥🔥
Healthcare workers were given fit-tested N95 respirators (#masks). Here's what happened.
🔹Same N95 worn for 5 shifts
🔹Shifts typically 10 hrs
🔹Taken off and put back on (doffed/donned) typically 4 times per shift
🔹25% of workers re-donned 7+ times per shift!
🔹Stored in an air-tight bin between shifts (they should have been allowed air flow to dry out..)
🔹39% of users failed to pass a qualitative fit test after shift 1
🔹About 90% failed a fit test after re-use for 5 shifts (typically 20+ re-dons)
🔹Cup-style N95s outperformed others on re-use
🔹Repeat doffing/donning (taking off/putting on) per shift was associated with increased risk of fit failure
🔹Qualitative fit testing overestimates the chances of "bad fit" by 71%
#CovidConscious crowd: I’m sure I saw some discussion of techniques for stapling excess #respirator material together under chin to improve fit on small faces …
But I can’t find it now and I don’t want to just start stapling willy-nilly!