It’s really no wonder people are susceptible to anti-mask propaganda undermining masks as an effective way to control the spread of aerosol transmitted diseases when the fact is, public health leadership has failed to properly explain to the public how respirator masks work.
I invite people to read the various ways people have misunderstood how masks work that I’ve heard about — and in some cases understandably misinterpreted concepts they’ve seen online about respirator masks. Sometimes wrongly people think that masks have a self-destruct time limit, or that there’s some time to infectious dose with or without a mask, when neither of these ideas are accurate. Those mask chart meme infographics that have circulated on social media and forums for years now have led people to think as long as they go outside every 30 minutes they can “reset the time” they’ll be safe in an infectious environment.
Unfortunately a lot of these misunderstandings feed into all or nothing fatalism propaganda. And a lot of stuff out there doing armchair science get into the weeds in ways that simply foster more confusion.
The physics hasn’t changed on respirator masks. There are no guarantees and nothing is perfect but the N95 mask still does the job.
The Astounding Physics of N95 Masks by MinutePhysics “By electretizing the fibers in an N95 mask, they gain a long-lasting ability to attract particles, which means they capture about 10 times as many particles as regular fibers.”