Sure looks like they’re wearing N95s under their cotton masks. More fashion than health.
One health benefit of cloth over N95 is that the cloth acts as a pre-filter to capture large gunk like dust and pollen to keep the N95 working longer. But it makes it harder to breathe and harder for moisture from your breath to escape, so there are some downsides. And a cloth overlayer means that it’s probably okay to wear N95’s with exhaust vents. Certainly it’s better if the mask is not vented, but considering the wide variety of mask hygiene in public, it probably doesn’t really matter if cloth covered N95 has a vent or not.
So what are you saying? A cloth mask over it turns into an N99? Putting a cotton mask over an N95 deforms it and puts it under physical pressure and wear. How does that effect its filtration? Let’s all just guess and jump on the bandwagon.
I’m saying that if the cloth mask captures a bunch of large gunk in the air like pollen and dust, that stuff does not clog up your N95. Most home air purifiers have both a pre and HEPA filter. The pre filter gets coated in dust, dog hair, etc. so the HEPA filter can stay clean and filter longer. I’m not saying anything about filtration improvement. I’m just saying that the cloth acts like a pre-filter to capture large particles so your N95 doesn’t get clogged with it.
And stop messing with her babies! (Me among them)
Wear a mask, over both your mouth and your nose. Everywhere when you can’t be 100% sure of six feet distance from everyone who you do not live with.
Don’t gather indoors with people you don’t live with unless mandated by essential employment. Yes, this means church, parties, weddings, funerals and Super Bowl parties. I know you really want to, most of us do, but don’t.
Wash your hands, early and often.
When indoors, be indoors for the shortest time possible. Shopping? Go early or late in the day to avoid crowds. Take a list, plan your route in the aisles, get in and get out. Time, distance, duration.
Vaccine as soon as possible. Sadly that is utterly out of our control it seems like. Too bad a Doper isn’t in charge of the vaccine campaign. Bet we would be in a much better place. Most of us play well with others.
That’s certainly reasonable but it ignores that you’re deforming the mask and putting it under constant physical pressure. I’m not in love with wearing a mask and frankly “hey, maybe we should wear 2 masks” sounds like you’re taking the piss.
The EMA have published the Public Assessment Report for the Moderna vaccine.
Reading through this AR you see the hallmarks of haste, to an even greater extent than for other vaccine ARs I have looked at. No, that’s not a criticism – we all know why they’re in a scramble.
It appears to have led to issues: some fairly trivial (eg applicant tried to use the US Drug Masterfile procedure for an excipient – not allowed in Europe); some more significant (eg proposed US manufacturing sites for the active substance had to be dropped for EU supply).
A couple of points of interest from the clinical sections – one for the US, one for the UK.
Quotes coming up – but you can skip to the explanation which follows :
In summary, the results of Phase 1 Study 20-0003 showed a consistent dose response across age groups by several measures of humoral immunogenicity for both binding and neutralising antibodies. Taking forward the 100 µg dose (administered as 2 injections, 28 days apart) to Phase 2a and 3 studies was based on several observations: (i) 2 injections of 100 µg stimulated serum bAb concentrations and titres greater than 2 injections of 25 μg in the 18 to 55 years of age stratum; (ii) 2 injections of 100µg induced nAb responses (measured by PsVNA) similar to those measured in recipients of the 250µg dose in the 18 to 55 years or age subjects evaluated; and (iii) 2 injections of 100µg led to a lower incidence of reactogenicity than 2 injections of 250µg (Jackson et al N Engl J Med. 2020; Anderson et al N Engl J Med. 2020). The 50µg dose induced comparable humoral immune responses to the 100ug dose (data for the 50µg dose available until day 57). (Pg70)
In summary, participants in Phase 2a who received 2 doses of either 50 or 100μg of mRNA-1273 separated by 28 days developed both binding and neutralising antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, with GMFRs > 20-fold (bAb) and > 50-fold (MN assay), regardless of dose level. These data support dose selection in principle because of the magnitude of the antibody response to 2 doses of mRNA-1273 even if the differentiation between 50μg and 100μg is close to negligible. Responses and dynamics observed across age cohorts was comparable. (Pg 76).
What these 2 paras are saying is that, of the range of doses investigated, the 50 mcg dose and the 100 mcg dose were similar, and both were superior in terms of immunogenicity (an efficacy marker) to 25 mcg and superior in terms of reactogenicity (a safety marker) to 250 mcg. In the end, it was the 100 mcg dose (only) which was tested vs placebo in the pivotal study. So far as I can tell, this dose-ranging is the basis for the US proposal that half-doses of the Moderna vaccine might be used.
For the UK:
In the protocol the acceptable window for receiving the second dose was defined as -3/+7 days around day 28. At the time of definition of major protocol deviations, which was to happen before unblinding, the acceptable visit window was widened to days 21 – 42 (- 7/+14 days around the interval of 28 days). The impact of this change cannot be fully assessed at this point in time. Only around 600 study participants in the PP set were outside the initially defined window but fell in the widened window. (Pg 106)
Now, I’m sure I heard (as justification for the general 12 week gap between injections) that although there was no data in the Pfizer application about a delayed second injection, there was in the Moderna one. (Anyone else remember this? I know there is in the A-Z package, but the point being made was that Pfizer and Moderna are quite similar products).
Anyways, the longest gap between injections, in the case of Moderna, appears to be 42 days.
(See post 265 for earlier comments on fill volume vs doses per vial.)
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Which could well be giving you a better seal and helping the mask work better.
The ASL interpreter for official coronavirus reports from the state of Hawaii came to California to visit her daughter, caught Covid, and died.
It just might!
100,286,772 total cases
2,149,496 dead
72,313,625 recovered
In the US:
25,861,597 total cases
431,392 dead
15,617,360 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
Over 100 million total cases.
Shit.
As far as I can see, there are no states reporting record highs in daily reported cases (seven day averaged) since the weekend.
In fact, in most cases the last reported high was weeks ago.
May this trend continue
In most of the countries reported on the Johns Hopkins site, the daily reported cases (seven day average) has been going down (with a few exceptions, like Portugal and Spain), and the worldwide daily reported cases actually appears to finally be going down.
We are still trying to get vaccinated:
Santa Rosa county maintains a list. The lady says she does not know who uses it or what they do with it. She just enters names on a spread sheet.
My Primary Care Physician office is adamant that they do not have anything to do with COVID vaccinations.
Miami Herald press release says Publix will roll out a second attempt to give shots today, but the only information is on line. Publix stores have no information.
There are a couple of online pages giving Publix info, mostly boiler plate. But the following seems to be the whole story:
Publix is announcing today 26, Jan that beginning on 27 Jan you can register on-line (no url) for shots on 28 Jan. That’s at COVID-19 Vaccine Appointments | Publix Super Markets
We shall see.
More on double-masking. This makes a lot of common sense to me.
…
The mask with the greatest filtering capabilities should go on first, like the N95, KN95 or a well-fitted surgical mask. Make sure that mask is tightly sealed against your face. You don’t want gaps in the mask along the sides of your face where contaminated air can sneak in.Data suggests certain cloth masks might not be as protective as we once hoped, so it might be time to officially ditch the bandanas and neck gaiters and have your second layer be a multilayer cloth mask or another surgical mask.
In general, the more layers your masks have, the better off you — and the people around you — will be. Studies have found that masks with multiple layers can block 50% to 70% of small droplets. When it comes to cloth masks, evidence suggests three layers of tightly woven fabric are the way to go.
“The more layers you have covering your nose and mouth means less virus you’re able to disseminate into the population. And then the more layers you have between you and the environment, the fewer viral particles are going to get into your system,” said Duszynski, who recommends double-masking when going indoors where other people will be.
…
If Huff Post isn’t a scientifical enough source, how about Dr. Fauci:
[Fauci] says that double masking “likely does” help protect against the mutant strains: “It just makes common sense that it would be more effective.”
If you take two colanders with different size holes, does using them together increase the amount of stuff you filter out?
And part of the way N95s work is through a static charge. What does common sense say about how smushing it under a cotton mask affects that?
It impacts positively on the process! When I strain used oil (after deep frying a turkey, for example) I have a set up that works great. I have one of our colanders set up, clamped to a bench. I pour my 4 gallons of oil into the colander. Immediately below the colander is a very fine sieve, below that is a stockpot.
Without the colander collecting the big chunks, the fine sieve would get plugged up quickly.
We’ve been wearing two masks in our household almost since the start of the pandemic. We also just don’t go out that much.
I’m only guessing – okay hoping – that maybe my time overseas and riding the subways in Japan might have exposed me to a shit ton of viruses of all types and that this might help my immune system fight off the 'rona if I get it. I’m almost gradually bringing myself to believe that it won’t be a matter of if I get it but when, and what kind of shape my body will be in and what kinds of resources we’ll have on hand to fight it.
My thinking - and I think my wife and household’s thinking all along - has been that we might get it but we want to get it at the right time, if there is such a thing. What would the “right time” mean?
- Get it when hospitals aren’t overwhelmed.
- Get it after being vaccinated.
- Get it when you’re relatively free of other diseases.
- Get it when there are a wide range of treatments to fight off the worst impacts of the disease immediately.
Beyond that, if you’re going to get it, then try to minimize your viral load - that can literally mean the difference between life and death just by itself. Health front-line hospital workers have died not because they were unusually susceptible to disease but because they were spending a long time in places with really high concentrations of the virus. Plus they are stressed and tired, which weakens their own immunity over time.
If we can just keep this all in mind: 1) try to fend off getting sick until a ‘good time’ and 2) try to minimize viral load, then it might mean that if you do get it, you won’t get horribly ill or die from it. That’s why wearing two masks might be helpful, assuming you’re not walking around with a mask that’s dirty and collecting virus particles all the time.
Absolutely yes. It’s the principle of lining a colander with cheesecloth. I’m kind of amazed that you resist seeing that. I guess you have your reasons.
Uh, the cheese cloth is doing the straining, the colander is just holding it in place.
Well, I’m sure 3M will be thrilled with this new discover. They can make their N95s much improved by slapping another piece of cloth over it.