The attached tweet illustrates how C-19 and other respiratory viruses are primarily transmitted. In this tweet someone who was infected sits in a small break room and exhales virions in small aerosols for a period of time. Those virions in small aerosols like invisible smoke fill the air in this small room. Other people in the room inhale these aerosolized virions through their nose and get infected. The aerosolized virions stay suspended in the air for a period of time. So other people who later come in and sit in this break room an hour or hours later also inhale these aerosolized virions. And it doesn’t matter whether they’re vaccinated or not, they get infected because these vaccines do NOT provide very much mucosal (IgA) or sterilizing immunity.

The smaller the room, the faster the room fills up with these aerosolized virions like with smoke. The more people in the room who are infected increases the amount of exhaled virions. The more people in or go through this room, the more people who are exposed. The longer people sit in the room, the more aerosolized virions people are also exposed to. And the less air movement or filtration, the longer the aerosolized virions hang in the air. So the four “D’s” matter …that is the Dimensions of the room, the Density of population in the room, the Duration of time spent in the room, and the Draft or ventilation/filtration of air in the room.

People wearing no masks are most exposed in such a setting. But so are people wearing low quality and or loose fitting masks. (See video clip just below). Low quality cloth masks don’t block airborne aerosols. Such aerosols are so small that they go right through cloth fabric. Cloth masks are not made with an electrostatic fabric, so they only block large droplets. Large droplets aren’t the main problem. Aerosolized virions are. Surgical masks do provide electrostatic fabric. But these masks typically have large gaps around the bridge of the nose and sides of the face. Aerosolized airborne virions go right through these gaps, so loose fitting masks don’t provide much protection in interior spaces against aerosolized virions.

So when I see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in NBA commercials wearing a cloth mask over his beard, and then listen to him pontificate about needing to get vaccinated to stop spread…all I can think to myself is what a f’ing idiot. These vaccines don’t stop infection or transmission. Cloth masks don’t stop transmission especially when worn over beards that create large gaps around the mask. If Kareem was wearing a fitted N95 or KF94 mask, he’d be a bit more credible. But since he’s wearing a loose fitting cloth mask over a beard, he’s just another virtue signaling imbecile.

What’s really strange with mask wearing is that 18 months and a lot of virtue signaling, many people wearing masks don’t really seem to have any clue how this virus is transmitted. I’ve literally seen families sit down in a small poorly ventilated restaurant, remove their masks, eat and drink for a long period of time, and then when they’re finished…go outside and put their masks on. Another example that makes no sense is entering a restaurant and waiting in a queue to order with a mask on, and then sitting down 10 feet away in the same poorly ventilated room and eating or drinking without a mask on. It’s the same air! More masking incoherence in sports bars, where maskless people sitting at densely packed tables scream and yell at their sports teams then put on masks to walk through the restaurant when they’re not at their tables. The air quality isn’t any different whether you’re sitting or standing or walking through the restaurant. Again, transmission of respiratory viruses is primarily through airborne aerosols NOT droplets. Droplets fall to the ground very quickly even for people a yard or meter away.

Such ignorance on transmission isn’t limited to restaurants and bars. When I went to my cardiologist for some baseline diagnostics, I sat in a packed poorly ventilated rooms with a lot of obese people wearing cloth and loose fitting surgical masks. The staff was also wearing loose fitting surgical masks. I asked the staff if they were filtering the air, and they said no.  I mention obesity, since this demographic when infective tends to have high viral loads (due to adipose tissue) and also tends to exhale a lot more air due to less efficient respiratory systems. So as this study, “Exhaled aerosol increases with COVID-19 infection, age, and obesity“, from last year notes, obese people are more likely to be super spreaders.

Outdoor mask wearing is also for the most part very silly. The CDC’s misinformed emphasis on droplets completely confused (and still confuses) people. Fauci has also confused everyone with his mask wearing guidance which as this tweet shows has been all over the place and often very wrong. Again, think of aerosolized virions like invisible smoke. If you’re outside, will the air fill up with this “smoke” as easily or quickly as a small to medium sized poorly ventilated room? Also realize that UV radiation destroys this virus. So sunlight outdoors and uv lighting indoors reduce the amount of aerosolized virus that hangs in the air. And again low quality or loose fitting mask wearing isn’t effective indoors, so wearing such low quality masks outdoors is even stupider.  Again, walking through Little Osaka on the Westside, some of the sillier behavior I see is people waiting in line with masks on outside, and then sitting down inside where they take their masks off for an extended period of time to eat and drink. Or, equally as silly, standing in line waiting for an outdoor table with masks on, and then once seated outdoors a few feet away, taking those masks off. The outdoor air didn’t suddenly clear of “smoke”…and again droplets are NOT the main means of transmission.

Oh, and then there are the outdoor dining areas that are fully enclosed. What’s interesting about this virus is it seems to like cooler temperatures. When you understand this and that’s it’s more of an indoor virus, you get a better sense of seasonal trends. So during the summer in hot humid environments like the Southeast US, people sit inside in sealed up houses with the air conditioners on blast. So poorly ventilated cool environments are conducive to viral transmission. And what happens in more temperate climates with enclosed outdoor dining tents? Air movement is reduced, and the air temperatures are cooler. So, enclosed outdoor dining tents are also very conducive environments for viral transmission when temperatures start to drop.

Needless to note, a lot of transmission occurs in the home from one family member to another as well as in restaurant/bar environments. Plus the problem with silly mask wearing is that it provides a false sense of security as well as trivializes appropriate situational higher quality mask wearing….and by higher quality mask wearing I mean N95 or KF94 masks worn in public interior spaces from cabs, trains, school rooms, offices, bars, etc. In such spaces, better air quality is key. So monitoring air quality with CO2 detectors as well as improving air quality using fans, UV lights, Hepta filters and opening windows.

Anyway, I’ve shared these three papers before on outdoor, and indoor viral transmission. So what I’ve written above is based largely on understanding the underlying science rather than being misguided by government authorities promulgating very bad information.

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