Homemade mask doesn’t do shit for aerosal. If you just wear a homemade mask, you can still smell just about everything that passes through. N95 is better but only if you wear it correctly, and there is a tight seal between it and your face. Most people don’t put on a mask correctly, so the effectiveness goes way down. The only masks that are really effective are the P100 masks. But those masks, besides the need to put them on correctly, have a valve. So while it offers superior protection for yourself, doesn’t do shit for the person next to you because the way the valve works, it closes fully when you breath in but opens fully when you breathe out. It’s designed to protect the wearer and make it comfortable to breathe, but that’s bad news for everyone else because water droplets/etc from you is going right into the air unfiltered. I wear these respirators all the time for painting and I feel much safer that St least with paint, you aren’t wearing things correctly you can tell right away…because you can smell the fumes right away. So I had plenty of time to practice wearing a respirator correctly. I guarantee most people,.even if they have the proper PPE, probably aren’t puting it on correctly to be effective. that’s why social distancing and remaining at home remains key.
That’s why a lot of these protestors are fucking stupid. They keep saying we will keep at 6 feet away as if 6 feet is a magic number for guaranteeing you won’t catch something from a stranger next to you. That 6 feet has a lot of assumptions. for example you aren’t stand next to someone for a very long time, there isn’t any wind that could carry aerosol particles for a distance, etc. Morons, absolute morons. Darwin in practice.
