Wednesday, September 09, 2020

The Mathematical Magic of Masks



You've been wearing a mask anytime you go out, right? You probably encounter other people who are wearing masks, some of which are cooler than yours. You've also seen people in public not wearing masks, so is it really worth the hassle? Yes. Minute Physics crunched the numbers for us and explain how masks are actually more effective than you might think. Of course, there are plenty of variables, which they go over at the end of the video, and there's a lot more information in this essay by Aatish Bhatia. Oh yeah, and don't forget to wash your hands. (via reddit)

2 comments:

xoxoxoBruce said...

Wow, that's the best explanation of how effective masks are/can be, ever.

newton said...

There's another very good reason to wear a mask: apparently the amount of virus you get exposed to affects how sick you get.

In cruise ships and meat plants where people wore masks in comparison to those where people didn't there was a much higher percentage of people who got sick but had no or very mild symptoms compared to the maskless who often go very sick:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/09/coronavirus-another-reason-for-that-mask-youll-get-less-sick/

So even if you get the virus, you are much better off if you were wearing a mask when you caught it.