In an interview for 60 Minutes, CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook posed that question to Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech University professor specializing in aerosol science.

“They are very helpful in reducing the chances that the person will get COVID because it’s reducing the amount of virus that you would inhale from the air around you,” Marr said about masks.

No mask is 100% effective. An N95, for example, is named as such because it is at least 95 percent efficient at blocking airborne particles when used properly. But even if a mask has an 80% efficiency, Marr said, it still offers meaningful protection.

“That greatly reduces the chance that I’m going to become infected,” Marr said.

Marr said research shows that high-quality masks can block particles that are the same size as those carrying the coronavirus. Masks work, Marr explained, as a filter, not as a sieve. Virus particles must weave around the layers of fibers, and as they do so, they may crash into those fibers and become trapped.

Marr likened it to running through a forest of trees. Walk slowly, and the surrounding is easy to navigate. But being forced through a forest at a high speed increases the likelihood of running into a tree.

“Masks, even cloth masks, do something,” she said.

Not that I expect most people to believe it at this point…

  • @YoBuckStopsHere
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    -61 year ago

    It’s always about who is able to reproduce. Intelligence (not smart or dumb, just basic Intelligence) would lead you to take precautions during a pandemic. Washing hands, masks, vaccines. That is a level, fact is that those who didn’t take precautions were far more likely to become sick. Then you had to hope your immune system was up to the task.

    It actually broke the idiotcracy delimma with a chunk of the human population with poorer genes and lower intelligence were removed from selection.

    • @Zombiepirate
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      1 year ago

      It’s always about who is able to reproduce. Intelligence (not smart or dumb, just basic Intelligence) would lead you to take precautions during a pandemic.

      I mean, I just gave a counterpoint to this. Smart people are good at justifying and sustaining their current beliefs. Surely you don’t think intelligence is a measure of how correct one’s beliefs are?

      It actually broke the idiotcracy delimma with a chunk of the human population with poorer genes and lower intelligence were removed from selection.

      This is just more social darwinist eugenicist pseudoscience.

      • @YoBuckStopsHere
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        -51 year ago

        You’re talking smart and dumb. I’m talking basic Intelligence or ability to stay alive on a daily basis.

        • @Zombiepirate
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          1 year ago

          By using debunked eugenicist arguments and supporting my point that smart people are good at justifying their false positions to themselves.