Medical slide, sort of, and long.
OK, you all know I have had a tantrum a couple of times over masks. Well, I haven’t worn one in 6-weeks. I decided to trust the Ivermectin instead.
Just for some background, I retired after almost 40 years from a company that uses a lot of very dangerous chemicals. I was trained in wearing and fitting the N95. I trained other people in how to wear them. I did random checks to make sure they were wearing them properly. I wore one for years in certain departments. Our chemical situation was so dangerous that you had to wear a helmet and oxygen type pack on your back in certain departments. I’m talking lead, mercury, manganese, acid, and more. So, I’m no stranger to masks and what they will and will not do. We were only allowed to wear the N95 for two hours before we were required to get out of the department, remove it, and breathe fresh air. We changed masks every two hours all day, no exception.
I know as well as anybody that the paper medical masks are not even close to the N95. I know why medical people wear them and it’s not to protect them. When Covid first started I had requests from nurses, Vets, and other medical professionals to sew masks. I went by the instructions put out by Vanderbilt hospital in Nashville that required certain material. I put adjustable ear loops on them to make them fit better. I put filter pockets in them. The medical people wanted them to wear over their paper masks to 1) keep their paper masks clean longer and 2) give them an added layer of protection. Keep in mind that this was before we realized that Covid wasn’t as bad as they said it was.
I know as well as anybody that the paper masks aren’t good protection. My feeling is/was that the only thing they were good for was in the case that somebody infected sneezed directly on you. They can temporarily stop large droplets but I know they will not stop the small virus particles. They are at best a temporary barrier.
I know that the same mask should not be worn all day the way some employers have required their employees to do. When you do that they CAN develop diseases, fungus, etc. inside the mask.
I know that they can inhibit breathing to a certain degree. My oxygen level stays around 98 to 99 when my asthma isn’t giving me trouble. With the mask on it falls to 95 or so.
I know that they can cause skin issues and infections. The N95 did that to me.
My husband retired from the same place I did so he knows all about how to wear them. There is nothing I can teach him about masks. His doctor told him to wear one when in crowds and he does. Mine told me the same thing 10 years ago but I was also told to always wear a fresh one and not for an extended period of time. They said to keep up the normal hand washing and other preventions BECAUSE THE MASKS AREN’T 100%.
Now, here’s the thing with me. I think for myself. I do my own thing. I do my own research. I don’t believe every link posted that is trying to tell me what to think and how to act. I check them out as part of my research but I also find my own sources. When I’m being talked down to like I’m the village idiot I tend to overreact some...OK a lot. It’s all downhill from there.
So, almost every statement that has been made in here about masks has been right to a point. Wearing them takes a lot of common sense. Not everybody can do that. With my experience with masks I know what they will and will not do. Most people do not. The main fault I find with most people wearing them is that they were not trained in how to wear one and for how long. They have been taught to trust the mask and you never trust the mask. It takes a lot more than that.
I know all the political reasons people don’t like them. I was wearing them LONG before Covid. Covid did not make me start wearing them. Politicians did not make me start wearing one. But, I am not going to let mask hate over politics stop me from what I feel I need to do. There is no reason to bully others and call others names over their decision to wear or not wear a mask. Maybe living in an area where we haven’t been forced, except in a doctor’s office, to wear them has made me feel differently about them. Nobody should be forced by any government to wear the mask.
Now, if the Ivermectin works like promised I may never wear another one during flu season because I figure if it works against Covid it should work against the flu. š If so the best thing Covid did for me is to get me out of the mask in flu season. BTW, I haven’t worn one during Covid in summer, only winter, because my main reason has always been the flu.
Last year, where I worked the were constant shortages of these masks. I had to be fit tested 3 different times in a short period with different types. I have always hated the darn things. You are absolutely correct regarding the value of those ridiculously absurd surgical masks that the vast majority of people are still wearing, at least around here in my area. They do absolutely nothing to protect from viruses and they can result in re-breathing CO2 issues.
One can have a ānormalā O2 Sat while still not ventilating properly due to excess Carbon Dioxide in the bloodstream. The sheep seem to only be aware of what they see on the TV and that to me is unsettling.
I frankly don’t understand how people can even wear masks while doing anything physical. I never wore one until Coof came along, and then I didn’t wear one until the stores wouldn’t let people in without them. It was equally a physical discomfort thing as it was political, for me. Plus I thought if everyone was going to get the damn virus, like they were saying, I might as well get it sooner than later. I attribute the fact that I didn’t get it to having taken all the right supplements for many years before I knew they’d be the ones recommended to prevent Coof.
Anyway, I had seen the writing on the wall before the mask mandates happened, though, and one day I spent several times longer making a cotton cloth mask (because I’m a sewing machine klutz, lol) than I ended up wearing it, as it turned out. Soon afterward, I went to the wholesale club with hubby (who wore a t-shirt around his neck that he’d pull up over his face). We had a coupon for several bucks off a case of paper towels, and at the checkout, each of us thought that the other had grabbed them, and neither of us had. They were toward the rear of the store, so I sprinted to get them, and sprinted back carrying them on my shoulder.
By the time I returned to the checkout, I was gasping for air and breathing so heavily I thought I’d pass out, so I pulled the mask out from my face so I could breathe. After I got home, I punched several big holes in the nostril area of that mask, and a few days later, got the bright idea to take some leftover patio screening, pleat it and add earloops for a “Compliant Face Covering”. (This was many months before someone got the idea to make and sell Fakemasks, but in the same vein.) I never looked back. My husband wanted one too, so I made him one.
I took a leave of absence from my favorite music gig this past season, because although they held it outdoors and had everyone socially distanced, from the audience to the singers to the musicians, they also demanded that everyone who didn’t play a wind instrument wear a mask - which they would provide, and of the N95 type. My “Compliant (everywhere else) Face Covering” wouldn’t have passed muster with them, and I knew it would be very difficult for me to participate, as the work can be physically strenuous. So I declined, rather than put it to the test.
Some people can do it, I’m just not one of them.
Haiti President Jovenel MoĆÆse assassinated in middle-of-the-night attack at his home
https://archive.fo/scbrC
Interesting.
Trump announcing a major lawsuit against lots of Big Tech. Tobacco lawyers taking it on. Let it bring them down!