Masks or hand sanitizer?

[patman post]

To me, as an ordinary member of the public, you come across as someone who's over rationalising.
Where the virus comes from when it's on the shop counter, bus pole, tube strap hanger, etc, is irrelevant for the ordinary commuter or shopper. But putting as many obstacles as possible in its transmission path is the aim.
So washing and santitising hands as often as possible, and always wearing the recommended mask when in public does that, without having to evaluate the relative virus hot-spots we travel through in our daily lives...

PS — from the BBC: Delivery slots permitting, a home food drop is less risky than a trip to a supermarket as you will avoid other shoppers.
Any risk would be the possible contamination of food or packaging - handled by other people - or from the delivery driver.
You could leave a note on your door asking drivers to ring the bell and step back, but Prof Bloomfield says there's no such thing as "zero risk".
"For contained or packaged goods, either store them for 72 hours before using them - or spray and wipe plastic or glass containers with bleach [carefully diluted as directed on the bottle].
"For unwrapped fresh goods, which could have been handled by anyone - wash thoroughly under running water and leave to dry," she adds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52040138

[BeElBeeBub]

Frequent hand washing helps protect both the hand washer and other people by reducing the amount of bacteria, viruses and other unpleasant material picked up and transferred by the hands.

Agree.

But where does the (in the context of CV19) "unpleasant stuff" come from originally?

As far as I understand, it can only come from an infectious person's respiratory tract via the nose or mouth.

Although I believe transmission by faeces, urine, sweat etc is potentially possible i don't think that is significant when shopping or on a bus (unless it's the night bus...)

So, given washing if off your hands having being contaminated by a surface is effective, isn't stopping the surface being contaminated in the first place also effective?

Masks, as recommended the public should use, only protect other people from you if you're carrying the virus.

Yes, it keeps you from spraying the virus around

But medics tell us they can be a hazard to the wearer if not removed and disposed of correctly. This is because the mask gets moist during wearing and can pick the virus on its outer layer — so the wearer should not to handle the moist part of the mask.

This is true in the context of an uninfected person who is in an environment with lots of potential infection sources, as a doctor/nurse etc would be.  After a given shift there is a high probability the mask surface is contaminated and so should be doffed carefully.

However in this case, the person wearing the mask is in an environment where it is unlikely there is any virus.  If there is virus on their mask it either

A) is from them, in which case contamination is irrelevant.

B) would have landed on/been transferred to their face or have been breathed in anyway (how else is in there?). So even if 50% of contaminated masks result in a contaminated wearer, you are still reducing the cases by 50%.

The modeling I linked to earlier even looked at the case where wearing a mask increases the risk to the wearer and even then the overall R number reduces except at the extreme uptake level (eg 90% wearing)

To be safer, I guess we could remove all clothing and shower as soon as we return home...

Exactly.

If touch and contaminated surfaces were the main route, wouldn't we still see a huge number of infections from home deliveries, mail, parcels, even walking outside and never seeing another person.

Whilst my "in person" contacts are way down, my contact with delivered goods is way up.

I don't believe they have traced a case of a "hermit" who got it despite never having contact with anyone (could be wrong)

[papasmurf]

.
To be safer, I guess we could remove all clothing and shower as soon as we return home...

That is very good advice, and  you should also put the clothing in a washing machine at a 60 degree wash.

[patman post]

I come back to the original point:

If handwashing is so vital then why isn't mask wearing important?

Frequent hand washing helps protect both the hand washer and other people by reducing the amount of bacteria, viruses and other unpleasant material picked up and transferred by the hands.
Masks, as recommended the public should use, only protect other people from you if you're carrying the virus. But medics tell us they can be a hazard to the wearer if not removed and disposed of correctly. This is because the mask gets moist during wearing and can pick the virus on its outer layer — so the wearer should not handle the moist part of the mask.
To be safer, I guess we could remove all clothing and shower as soon as we return home...

[BeElBeeBub]

I come back to the original point:

If handwashing is so vital then why isn't mask wearing important?

The only circumstances I can see that mean handwashing is fatal but mask wearing isn't are:

1) The infective particles does not originate from the nose/mouth eg they are produced only in sweat etc.

2) The infective particles are too small to be affected by a mask but the particles that are stopped by a mask contain no infective particles anyway.

3) the negative aspects of a mask outweigh the positive e.g. additional touching, mask being a breeding ground, less distancing.

We are pretty certain 1 doesn't apply

I cannot see a mechanismn for 2 to occur.

3 has the most weight, but the touching is a public messaging (and design) issue.  The "breeding ground" idea isn't possible with a virus (would be an issue with a bacteria) and less social distancing is a public messaging issue (and potentially the whole point of mask wearing)

[BeElBeeBub]

Summary of research into how effective masks are at preventing droplets escaping.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1274036544387477504.html

[papasmurf]

The problem is lots of people decided "going for a pint" was necessary. Or driving to London from the Midlands for a loaf of bread. Or getting their hair cut. Or depositing £2.50 of coppers at the bank. Or driving 60 miles to check their eyesight.

Or gathering by the thousands on beaches, at demonstrations, and illegal raves.

[BeElBeeBub]

So if washing hands, wearing a mask and keeping 6 foot away from others work, why the lockdown?

Because we needed to drop R well below 1.

To do so needed a drastic cut in close interactions.

If the public were compliant then all the gov needed to do is say "wash hands, stay 2m apart unless absolutely necessary"

The sensible and complaint population would then do that.

The problem is lots of people decided "going for a pint" was necessary. Or driving to London from the Midlands for a loaf of bread. Or getting their hair cut. Or depositing £2.50 of coppers at the bank. Or driving 60 miles to check their eyesight.

[Benson]

So if washing hands, wearing a mask and keeping 6 foot away from others work, why the lockdown?

[BeElBeeBub]

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818

Study using the different timings of mandatory mask orders in different US states to gauge the effect.

Concludes it has about ⅙ of the overall affect of other measures eg pub closures.

So whilst not a complete replacement for social distancing it is a useful complement to it, possibly allowing for fewer restrictions.

[Barry]

If that's all we need to do, the lock-down could have been avoided, but not enough was known about how the virus was spreading.
From Monday, all people at the hospital in corridors, will need to wear face coverings. As I have been working there since the beginning of the year without face masks, I find this quite a bizarre decision, but the government have given this to the NHS as an order.

[BeElBeeBub]

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/widespread-facemask-use-could-shrink-the-r-number-and-prevent-a-second-covid-19-wave-study


Interesting conclusion

I am am a little wary of "silver bullet" studies. This would seem to imply that all we need to do is adopt mask wearing, which seems a little too good to be true.

Still...

[BeElBeeBub]

Article from the telegraph of all places about what we could learn from Portugal



https://twitter.com/PaulNuki/status/1270360372579635200?s=19">https://twitter.com/PaulNuki/status/127 ... 35200?s=19">https://twitter.com/PaulNuki/status/1270360372579635200?s=19



TLDR



Lots of mask wearing, hand sanitizer everywhere



Crucially, clear simple messages from government.

[papasmurf]

Drink the hand sanitizer....

Far too expensive to waste like that.

[johnofgwent]

Drink the hand sanitizer....



It wont cure your Covid19 but I bet you wont care a few hours later