[BostonCard]

It makes some sense to me that coughing causes a forced leakage of air around the mask which results in contamination of the environment, while simply breathing would cause most of the exhaled air to pass through the mask/filter. If so, maybe the public health lesson should be that if you have a cough you should not go out in public at all; everyone else should wear masks in public. But I agree, this is a preliminary, exploratory study that just points the way toward better formal research.

I think that was the lesson I drew from the article as well.  For a patient who is symptomatic, the masks will probably offer limited protection to other people and therefore should not be used as a substitute for self-quarantine.  They may help prevent spread from asymptomatic people who are simply breathing normally or talking, but symptomatic patients with COVID-19 should stay the f home unless they absolutely cannot.

BC

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OF, the whole point of the article is that, to use your analogy, if the other guy pees, you are still going to get wet.

As I said, masks may be helpful if the other guy is asymptomatic and just breathing normally.  With the caveats of the article, they do not seem to be helpful if the other guy is symptomatic and coughing through the mask, and thus they should not be used as a substitute for self-qurantine.

BC

[BostonCard]

It makes some sense to me that coughing causes a forced leakage of air around the mask which results in contamination of the environment, while simply breathing would cause most of the exhaled air to pass through the mask/filter. If so, maybe the public health lesson should be that if you have a cough you should not go out in public at all; everyone else should wear masks in public. But I agree, this is a preliminary, exploratory study that just points the way toward better formal research.

I think that was the lesson I drew from the article as well.  For a patient who is symptomatic, the masks will probably offer limited protection to other people and therefore should not be used as a substitute for self-quarantine.  They may help prevent spread from asymptomatic people who are simply breathing normally or talking, but symptomatic patients with COVID-19 should stay the f home unless they absolutely cannot.

BC

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OF, the whole point of the article is that, to use your analogy, if the other guy pees, you are still going to get wet.

As I said, masks may be helpful if the other guy is asymptomatic and just breathing normally.  With the caveats of the article, they do not seem to be helpful if the other guy is symptomatic and coughing through the mask, and thus they should not be used as a substitute for self-qurantine.

BC