Talk about "carbon footprints"... (2023 Update)

"Computational microscopy", eh? In the palmy days, you had to be looking at some actual sample to be a microscopist.

O tempora, O mores. :(

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Phil ignores the amount of "looking" that is needed to provide the basic information that is required to set up that kind of simulation.

It is well known that the spike protein in the Covid-19 shell alternates between an open state - when the receptor binding domain is exposed and could latch onto a human ACE2 receptor (if there was one handy) and a closed state (when it isn't). Getting handle on how much of the time the spike proteins in an aerosol droplet might spend in the open state sounds like a useful exercise - and not easily accessible by more direct methods.

Of course what matters is the likely state of the spike protein when the aerosol droplet has hit the surface of the throat or lung and has a human cell in reach to latch onto.

This is accessible by computational simulation, and even less accessible to direct inspection.

Pretty pictures, but do masks work?

What do you think, do they work. Why do *you* think surgeons wear masks while operating.

I know you know how they work and that they *do* work, why are you out to do tribal propaganda now?

BTW covid or not masks in closed public spaces are a good thing, the rate of seasonal infections has dropped dramatically since they were made mandatory. Good hygiene is not a bad idea, you know.

Theatre?

"However, overall there is a lack of substantial evidence to support claims that facemasks protect either patient or surgeon from infectious contamination."

I don't know that they work. They may make things worse.

So you don't know that reducing the amount of saliva you spread around when talking by a factor of about 10 does protect other people from the infections you are carrying. Obviously you *do* know that, you manage a lot more complex tasks in your work than what it takes to see this.

If masks trapped droplets and sterilized them on the spot, they might help a little. Of course, they don't.

But droplets are now deprecated as a major virus spreader.

The bigger picture is that, in physics and math and engineering, theories are tested by hard experiment. In many other fields, truth is set by social concensus, and keeps changing. So in areas like nutrition and climate and medicine and sociology and economics, some skeptcism is warranted.

If we exclude the hard sciences, the rest are way over half wrong.

They do not need to sterilize the droplets. Capturing them is enough, they are not meant to protect you from your infections. And they *do* capture like 90% of the droplets a talking person spreads, it is easy to measure.

Consensus does not mean truth indeed. I did suggest to you once an experiment - talk against a mirror for a minute with then without a mask and compare the results. Not difficult to do, if you want experimental proof; of course you

*know* you will see the factor of about 10 I am talking about.

Or will you claim that reducing the amount of droplets in the air by a factor of 10 does not reduce the infection probability. I know there are tons of disinformation written to support such idiotic claims, hopefully you understand that posting links to that sort of thing might work on a forum for housewives, not here where most people are used to dig for cause of problems a lot subtler than the probabilities to spit on someone's face with and without wearing a mask.

Consensus is often wrong. Look at California and the consensus about the $ 1000 crime limit.

There are plenty of examples indeed. Not so long ago there was a consensus the Earth was flat.

And of course there are obvious things one can check for themselves, like the amount of saliva they spread while talking while they wear a mask and when they don't, no need to look for consensus on that. Like there is no need to look for it for the question whether it is day or night, a look through the window is usually enough.

What happens to the viruses next?

A macro-scale droplet will usually fall to the ground, where it will dry up and get walked on and such. Those viruses are mostly out of the game.

How about the ones trapped in a cloth mask? What's their destiny?

How about virus-bearing particles that are smaller than the cloth weave?

Some of the most-masked, most-vaccinated countries are now having record case peaks. Germany, Netherlands, Belgium.

Florida is relaxing a lot of restrictions, and cases have dropped about 15:1 from peak... 1 death yesterday out of 22 million. UK, with three times the population, had 143.

The causalities here are not at all obvious. That does not stop politicians and "experts" from pontificating all day.

Stay trapped in the mask until it is discarded, why do you pretend to not see the obvious.

Those that large you can see and run away from, typically you can see the intention of the person to spit in your face and take measures. The rest spat at you unintentionally from 1 meter or less will reach you before falling.

Whatever their destiny they do not reach other people because they are trapped.

These are within the 10% I mentioned the mask cannot do much about. The mask only gives about a tenfold protection, you know. Like washing your hands without going through the sterilizing procedures surgeons go through. You do wash your hands from time to time, don't you :).

Wearing a mask in public spaces, especially in crowded ones, is simply much better hygiene than not wearing one. Since they made them mandatory I see *a lot* less seasonal infections, running noses etc. I can't see a sane reason why someone would not want to put a mask for the 5 or 15 minutes while on a bus or in a shop etc., other than insisting on their right to be antisocial and to spread infections.

No.

Belgium and the Netherlands have half the case rate of the UK. (Germany has higher).

The UK has the lowest death rate, but it is tricky to compare those figures due to the different counting methods. The only reliable figure in that respect is the excess mortality.

Nor non-experts. Especially those that cherry pick data to suit their predilection (hint hint)

One can define unwelcome or unpopular data as cherry picking. I like to consider those things as "possibilities."

Or always Trust The Science.

Masks don't work very well if they aren't worn properly which many people don't do if at all. In Puerto Rico the virus seems to be taken seriously in most places, especially in the more urban areas. I've actually had to show my vaccine card to enter restaurants. But in the states, I enter a gas station and I might be the only person wearing a mask other than the workers and often they pull the mask down as soon as the customer walks away.

It is sad that a country like the US can get so outraged that we were attacked by a group of radicals who killed 3,000 on our home soil, which we responded to by allowing 4,000 more to die overseas and instituting all manner of rules about air travel costing billions of dollars and requiring us to take off our shoes to get on a f****ng airplane... unless you pay for the expedited clearance which allows them to wave requirements. But when it comes to a global pandemic we can't listen to doctors and scientists, instead decide that quack remedies will deal with the pandemic. Meanwhile millions of people die... because of stupidity.

I never understand why people respond to trolls. It is very clear that Larkin starts these discussions so he can argue meaninglessly with people. There's no thought to what he writes. The article he linked to simply says the hard evidence that surgical masks prevent infection is not robust. The article discusses no evidence they do NOT protect, yet Larkin suggests masks may make "things worse". I suppose based on the same line of reasoning we could say wearing surgical masks *may* make you sterile or they *may* make you a millionaire. The report found no evidence to contradict any of this.

The guy is a troll. Why respond to such stupid posts. It's like responding to skybuck2000. I suppose some people find stringing him along to be entertaining. "Let's get Larkin to show what a fool he is"...

Indeed.

Cherrypicking and confusing 2x with x/2 are antithetical to science.

He is not doing it for "meaningless discussions". He does have a tribal agenda and feeds the search engines in favour of it, adds to the sea of disinformation meant for people who could be misled (85% of the population is my estimate). Replying to that kind of posts feeds the search engines as well but also provides some context so part of the 85% won't fall prey.