In an interview for 60 Minutes, CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook posed that question to Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech University professor specializing in aerosol science.

“They are very helpful in reducing the chances that the person will get COVID because it’s reducing the amount of virus that you would inhale from the air around you,” Marr said about masks.

No mask is 100% effective. An N95, for example, is named as such because it is at least 95 percent efficient at blocking airborne particles when used properly. But even if a mask has an 80% efficiency, Marr said, it still offers meaningful protection.

“That greatly reduces the chance that I’m going to become infected,” Marr said.

Marr said research shows that high-quality masks can block particles that are the same size as those carrying the coronavirus. Masks work, Marr explained, as a filter, not as a sieve. Virus particles must weave around the layers of fibers, and as they do so, they may crash into those fibers and become trapped.

Marr likened it to running through a forest of trees. Walk slowly, and the surrounding is easy to navigate. But being forced through a forest at a high speed increases the likelihood of running into a tree.

“Masks, even cloth masks, do something,” she said.

Not that I expect most people to believe it at this point…

  • snooggums@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    That says the rates were higher than expected during pandemic, it does not say lockdowns were a cause.

        • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Lucky for me you’re not my PhD mentor and this isn’t graded. You don’t have to accept that isolation lead to a huge up tick in suicides, but you can’t provide a argument that it didn’t.

          • snooggums@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Claims to be working on a PhD but can’t cite sources to support their argument and wants others to prove a negative.

            • YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              You’ve provided nothing to this conversation. Now your attempting to throw insults because you’ve failed to back up your claims. I’ll take the win here. Good day.

              • snooggums@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                The whole pandemic situation lead to increased stress and you want to blame it all on ineffective lockdowns. You have been a detriment to discussion.

                Have fun with the participation trophy that you didn’t earn.

          • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            What I love is how you’re focused on suicides from poorly managed areas, and ignoring deaths from covid.

            Not saying suicide isn’t tragic, but drowning in your own lung juice is also tragic, and with a reduction of deaths by several thousand times compared to places to none or poorly handled lockdowns, it seems saving lives and restoring the economy quickly worked really, really well for them.

            But let’s focus on how “bad management leads to bad results”, and then question why you’re a whiny child who has a temper tantrum when being told what to do.