I mean surely it’s the same air going into their lungs regardless of the face mask? It’s not like an infectious disease spread by human contact where wearing a mask will reduce you getting the particles, it’s literally the air. So what’s really the point ?
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>It’s not like an infectious disease spread by human contact where wearing a mask will reduce you getting the particles, it’s literally the air.
No it’s…exactly the same.
Air pollution is a bunch of dangerous particles *in* the air but the O2 is still O2. Some of them are big enough to be stopped by a mask some aren’t. Smoke and most kinds of vehicle exhaust would be stopped pretty well by a N95 mask.
That’s like me ignoring all of the dust on top of my speakers because ‘its literally the air.’
Which is to say, no, it isn’t literally the air. It’s particles *suspended* in the air.
Why do people doing DIY wear face masks or N95/FFP3 style masks etc
For pretty much the same reason dust, and dirt and debris particles these are big enough to get trapped in or on most masks most of these particles are too big to pass through the mask
A lot of people think that covid will still pass through a mask although yes that’s a possiblity it’s greatly reduced with a mask because it’s carried with or on the droplets that are sprayed out when coughing and it’s the droplets that get caught and trapped in the mask it’s basic science in action (when we cough or sneeze (well some of us do) are taught to cover your mouth or nose with your hand a mask in effect is your hand) catching the spray wearing masks did dramatically reduce the spread of covid for that very reason
Surgical masks although not as protective as FFP3 Masks still have a mild level of protection that’s why Surgeons still wear them they are fluid and particle resistant to an extent in both directions, fluid splash resistant (note not water proof) on the coloured outer side and water or moisture wicking on the inside so it absorbs moisture from the wearers breath
China and many other countries where they have very high pollution levels have had people wearing face masks a lot longer prior to the covid pandemic for the main reason their Air pollution rate is currently 2.1 times over the Air Quality guidelines set out by the World Health organisation it’s basically SMOG most of the time in built up areas despite being thought of as pretty tech savvy etc they still burn a load of fossil fuels out n China and have the Highest Carbon Dioxide emissions in the world (12.7 billion metric tons)
So would you rather wear a mask and at least have some kind of mild filtration/protection around your mouth and nose or none at all in somewhere like China or other densely populated country where their Air pollution is pretty bad?
“Air” isn’t a defined substance or a strict scientific term. It’s just a general term we use for the collection of gases and substances that occupy the space floating around us. Typically it’s about 78% nitrogen gas, 20% oxygen gas, and then a bunch of other stuff in small amounts, including gases like CO2 (carbon dioxide), small particles like dust (which is a lot of dead skin cells), suspended liquids like water (humidity) and maybe even airborne pathogens like a COVID virus particle.
In polluted areas, that “other stuff” might be small particles of burnt material, or small droplets of water containing harmful chemicals (similar to “acid rain”). The masks are intended to prevent you from breathing in these things while still letting nitrogen gas, oxygen gas, and other substances through. The primary way it does this is to make the holes really small – a molecule of oxygen gas can fit through a *much* smaller hole than a droplet of dirty water or even a small particle of burnt plant matter. So this mask protects you from those particles floating around.
It’s true that even an N95 mask won’t protect you from *everything*. If the air around you suddenly gets filled with chlorine gas, those molecules aren’t much bigger than oxygen gas (comparatively speaking), so it won’t protect you from that. Also, in the early days of COVID, the first advice was *not* to buy masks because the virus itself was small enough to get through. However, they learned that individual virus particles weren’t spreading the disease as much as droplets containing tons of virus particles, and those droplets *could* be filtered out by even PM2.5 masks (bigger holes than N95 masks).
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