Quote:
Originally Posted by abysmal01
Yeah that's a pretty dumb post. You're comparing deaths of an illness that has already infected most of the people it will get this year with one that has barely got going. As pointed out upthread you're 20x more likely to die if you get corona than if you get the flu (2% compared to 0.1% mortality rate) . As someone who likely has a bottom 2% immune system I'm fairly worried.
2% is the absolute max really as we don't actually know how many people are infected. If you're in China and feeling kinda sick would you go in and get tested? That's a ticket to a 14-day quarantine in a "hospital".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Garick
Nope. According to the CDC, masks are effective when worn by the ill to keep others from catching it, as it prevents fluids from going out of the body in aerosol form, but don't work for avoiding the disease if you're not sick, as once the contaminants are aerosolized, a mask doesn't keep them out.
So it depends what kind of mask you're talking about. Particle masks, like n95 masks, will do a good job protecting the wearer from viruses because they filter that **** out (along with drywall dust, soot, etc). They will not protect other people from the wearer because they have valves that allow your breath to stream out unfiltered.
Surgical masks will protect other people from the wearer pretty well. This is why they are worn in the OR, to stop your bacteria breath from entering an open surgical wound. But they won't protect the wearer. They will, however, stop you from touching your face, which is good.
If we could get everybody to wear surgical masks that would be pretty good. You're not wearing it to protect you; you're wearing it to protect everybody else. Of course, that kind of thinking doesn't really appeal to non-medical Americans and it's definitely not the reason that every pharmacy in the country is sold out of surgical masks.