David Hopkins
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
I opened the News Tribune this morning (Dec. 1, 2020), and on the front page I see the headline "Citizen petition seeks county mask mandate."
Do masks work? It's a simple question, and there are definitive scientific study provided answers. We are constantly told to "follow the science," so let's do that.
First, consider how many people are currently wearing masks. A Pew Research poll in June found about 65 percent of Americans said they wore masks in stores all or most of the time. By August, a follow-up poll put the figure at 85 percent. In the News Tribune article itself, one of the petition signers stated, " when I look in the parking lots at the people going in and out, most are wearing masks, but some aren't." For the sake of argument, let's assume for a moment the eight out of every 10 people are wearing a mask. If they worked as claimed by many, why then are rates of infection rising so dramatically?
Second, consider the size of the virus particles. To date, scientists have established that a single Sars-Cov-2 virion is about 60-140 nanometers, or about 0.1 micron (a nanometer is one-billionth of a meter; a micron is one-millionth of a meter). The only type of protection that has been proven effective against this size of virus is a well-fitted N95 respirator. There have been several studies of the effectiveness of surgical masks again respiratory viruses. In a paper published in 2009, titled "Filtration Performance of FDA-Cleared Surgical Masks" four researchers concluded, while they tested five different brands of masks, four of the five allowed 15 percent or more of 100-nanometer particles through, and two of the five allowed more than half (50 percent) of those particles through. The best analogy I have heard so far is this: "It's like building a chain-link fence to keep out mosquitoes."
The simple truth is, masks - surgical or cloth - don't work. There is a wealth of scientific results that actually support that statement. With or without a mask mandate, cases are going to continue to rise because people think that with a mask on, the other, more effective preventions, such as social distancing and good hand hygiene are less necessary. The science says otherwise.