I’ve heard a lot of anti-maskers use the argument that since we breathe out CO2, it will become trapped in the mask and is dangerous to breathe back in.
Obviously, this isn’t the case, because doctors wear their masks for hours and hours on end while doing surgeries. However, I am wondering, how does it work?
In: Biology
The CO2 molecules diffuse through the mask much like the gaseous exchange that takes place I our lungs this can occur much easier than if it were the virus diffusing as the CO2 molecules are much smaller than the virus
Two reasons:
1) The mask isn’t a perfect airtight seal. Gas particles can still get through. Virus particles are much bigger (and float on even bigger water droplets) so get stuck.
2) You don’t breathe out that much CO2. Sure, exhaled air has more CO2 and less O2 than fresh air, but the difference isn’t so big that it makes a huge difference that quickly. If you were in a sealed box, you’d eventually use up all the oxygen. But you can breathe the same air a few times without issue. This is how CPR works. If we *only* exhaled CO2, then you’d be poisoning someone when you tried to revive them!
The air is about 400 parts per million CO2, or around 0.04%. It takes 3-5% before you start showing any symptoms from excess CO2, and more like 10-12% before it kills you, so around 100-250 TIMES higher concentration. Its very hard to achieve that in an unsealed environment like a mask. Even buried in an avalanche, people usually remain conscious for around 15 minutes with their face pressed directly into the snow.
Also, you’re able to smell CO2 at high concentrations, its the sharp tingling burning smell above a freshly opened can of soda. If there was enough CO2 building up to be dangerous, you would know about it.
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