I got some gaiters with a pocket for a filter. The filter looks like coffee filter paper quadrupled up. You can barely breathe through it.
One way or another this virus is gonna get me. Death by infection or death by face mask.
I’m deciding which one I like better.
I don’t have that type of mask, but I’m curious: Why are gaiters least effective? Because they’re thin??
Beck, we canNOT lose you! Stay home. If you get bored, we can entertain you. I can sing “Moon River” without hitting a single note in the song. I mean, that’s talent, right? Wouldn’t that entertain you? Be sure to look for my new CD, “Opera for the Tone Deaf,” and my classic, “Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits…on Helium!”
As for singing, I have a notoriety! I even get to sit out when everybody sings “Happy Birthday!” I have joked that one day, I’ll rent Carnegie Hall. I will charge admission, people will dress up and buy the tickets, they will sell out!
The curtain will rise, I will walk to center stage…and I will DO NOTHING. I won’t sing!
I know it is little comfort but if it is hard to breathe through, that’s a good sign. Means it is filtering out relatively more of those infinitesimally tiny virus. (No, I don’t have a cite for that-I’m a nurse, we survive because we know s*** like that).
If is very easy to breathe through that means a greater viral load of particles can be breathed in (not in your favor), as well as out (not in my favor).
Kudos to you for wearing a mask. You can breathe near me any time-at least ten feet away of course. I’ll be the one wearing a fuchsia homemade mask sewn out of my daughter’s college curtains. She graduated in 2008. I knew if I just hung onto to those I would someday be glad-never dreamed it would be this. I was more thinking of a watermelon Halloween costume for a grandchild…sigh.
I have a gaiter plus a variety of fabric masks plus about 50 disposables.
When I received the gaiter, I realized it was pretty thin, but I also found that I could fold the tube to half its length and breathing through the doubled thickness was almost as tough as through the triple thickness fabric masks.
If I pull it on carefully, the “double tube” fold doesn’t undo, so I use it for when I take walks where I expect to encounter people who are also out walking about. It’s easy to wear around my neck and can quickly be pulled up when I encounter someone but left down most of the time. I find it tougher to do this with other masks (generally I knock my glasses off or the mask ends up popping off one ear because my hair got in the way behind the ear).
I don’t wear the gaiter if I intend to go anywhere there is a chance I’ll be less than 6 feet from people for more than a few seconds (like stores).