and this also lines up with the fact surgical masks like this are reported to let about 30-33% of air in/out the sides
so bassically worthless
Now, do surgical masks let air in and out the sides so that the surgeon can get enough air flow to, you know, be able to breathe well enough to, you know, concentrate on his work, while the front of the mask blocks any dribbles of saliva that might escape while he is talking to the other surgical staff, thus stopping said saliva, which is filled with bacteria, from getting into the patient’s fresh surgical wound?
Heck you wear a mask and you can feel that from day one.
Early on, when this virus was an unknown and we didn’t yet have an idea of just how serious it was...at the request of my anxious wife I used my 3D printer to print a mask that sealed pretty tightly and had a replaceable filter in the front (I used high allergy “1500” furnace filters cut into squares for the filter, and it was fine enough to filter viruses according to 3M.
Honestly...I just wanted to see if I could make them...:) It was the journey.
About the time I got them finished, people were starting to realize that this wasn’t Ebola and we weren’t going to have Ryder trucks full of bodies like the media was pushing and...I never wore mine. (She wore hers once or twice, but I didn’t see the need and just tried mine on.)
On the ones I made, you could put the part that touches the face in boiling water to soften it up a little, then put it on your face and make it conform. I never got to the point of putting a final touch that made them truly airtight, but if you had it firmly on your face, you got almost no blow-by.
Honestly...I just wanted to make it to see if I could...:)