Doing a simple web scan for “N95 masks” on 20201123, I found:
N95 Respirators Not for Use by the General Public
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public wear N95 respirators to protect themselves from respiratory diseases, including coronavirus (COVID-19). Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for health care workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.
CDC Recommends Cloth Face Coverings for Use by the General Public
The CDC recommends that members of the public use “simple cloth face coverings” when in a public setting “to slow the spread of the virus,” since this will help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others. For more information, see the CDC’s Recommendation Regarding the Use of Cloth Face Coverings, Especially in Areas of Significant Community-Based Transmission.
The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, the CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions, such as hand washing and maintaining at least 6 feet of social distancing, to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases.
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-surgical-masks-and-face-masks (emphasis mine)
Following the reference above by CDC, you’ll find reinforcement that you should “not use masks with exhalation hole.” These allow for easy passage of breaths outward, but close when breathing in, to force the air to go through the filter media. The idea of wearing one of these mask is to protect you, the healthy individual, from “sickness” or other hazards around you. Bacteria And Virus particles are microscopic, will easily travel with the air stream past any loose bandage covering, even when the air stream makes bends here and there. This simple fact dictates that loose fitting masks, bandannas, etc., will simply be keeping up appearances, and offer zero protection.
A previous post, “Death by Virus,” which expounded briefly on the mobile interaction of airborne particles based on size, and the recommendations above, differ so substantially that suggests the gov’t entities’ recommendations are placebos. Their messaging is intended to prevent mass hysteria of an ignorant public. That’s because simple physics that dictate the behavior of airborne particles based on size also dictate that “simple cloth face coverings” Do Not Slow The Spread Of Virus.
As if to prove my point, I then saw https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/23/many-studies-find-that-cloth-masks-do-not-stop-viruses-like-covid/
Even the “social distancing of 6 feet” is meaningless, when you realize that someone contagious is breathing out particles that go right past the loose mask, you walk past that space within the next 90 seconds or so, and except for any forced air motion that migrates these particles elsewhere, you will breathe in what that other person just breathed out. The worst case scenario in my mind’s eye is a waiting room with little ventilation.
If I am revolutionary in saying this, then the laws of physics do not hold in this universe, I am an evil rabbit, and we live in Wonderland, with Alice. Pass the magic mushrooms, please!
Cheers