Masks help stop bacteria you may be breathing out from getting into the patients wound.
Viruses are MUCH smaller.
Covid is about the size of an adenovirus.
Okay, I’ll play the devil’s advocate here. Surgeons in the operating room always wear masks. Always. Are these surgeons ignorant of the truth? Or are they just all sheep? Or is it something else?
Trust me when I say this. I have no hidden agenda here. I have not formed a definite opinion on the effectiveness of masks. In fact, quite the opposite. I’m confused. That’s why I’m posting.
Those are N95 masks. Carefully and tightly fitted. Changed every 15-20 minutes.
They are most certainly not cloth, not used repeatedly and/or for long stretches of days or even weeks. Not hung from a rearview mirror to collect auto exhaust particles, pollen and God knows what else.
I can tell you one thing, if you saw the video I saw on You Tube showing how and where these masks are made and by whom you wouldn’t want it anywhere near your face.
To prevent bodily fluids and other germs (think staph infections) from harming the patient.
Surgeons don’t wear them all day every day. An honest one will tell you that that is harmful.
Masks help stop bacteria you may be breathing out from getting into the patients wound.
Viruses are MUCH smaller.
Covid is about the size of an adenovirus.
Germs and bacteria are much much much much smaller than a virus.
Primarily to prevent bacterial infections, not viral infections. Orders of magnitude different sizes.
Ok, I’ll play. Could it be surgeons don’t want to possibly infect patients with openings in their bodies to germs?
Could it be it’s not for the docs - but for the patients? Huh?
I mean, that’s why they wash their hands and arms for 20 minutes, isn’t it?
Talk to the operating room nurses, they wear masks basically for bacterial spread, breathing exhaling directly over opened wounds. One batch I received specifically stated not for Covid or virus transmission.
I work in an operating room.
The purpose of masks in the OR is not and never has been the reduction of viral transmission. Viruses are too small to be stopped by a mask. The purpose of a surgical mask is to prevent transmission of large droplets greater than 5 microns (like if your surgeon spits while he’s talking) and to prevent surgical staff from being splattered by your blood.
The HVAC system of an operating room is designed to turnover all the air in the room up to 40 times an hour, so viruses & small particles are constant flushed out. This is the reason why surgical instruments can remain open & laid out on the table for hours during the procedure.
We know as OR staff that our masks are essentially worthless after about 20-30 minutes because they become saturated with our own exhaled water vapor and no longer stop anything. Case in point: I sneezed once and reflexively raised my hand to my face. I didn’t touch my hand to my face, just had it out in front. I still felt the wet sneeze in my hand, through my mask.
So OR masks are stupid. In Europe, only those directly over the surgical field (surgeon & scrub tech) wear them. The anesthesia personnel do not.
Any time I leave the OR for a break or whatever, I have to change my mask because we know they stop working after a short while.
COVID has changed all that. People wear masks for hours on end. It’s ridiculous and completely unscientific
Bacteria and viruses are two separate entities, jus sayin’.