The Politics of a Health Crisis

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Many masks are augmentable. Customizable in about five minutes.

My podiatrist (yes, this is quite anecdotal and not on the internet until I put it there) showed me a technique to augment many kinds of masks: add two to four layers of new, straight off the roll, paper towel. The idea is that any droplets you exhale have to negotiate three to five layers of barrier to go anywhere, and any droplets out in the ambient have to thread through the same barriers to get at you -- and the trick does not make the mask breathe any worse, especially the blue-paper disposable surgical masks.

Being a doc, my podiatrist uses a more rigid protocol; he starts the day on about five layers of towel stapled with a couple of staples to the top edge of the mask, the towel layers of course being on the inside of the mask. A little shaping with scissors keeps the paper towel pieces neat and convenient. About every patient, or about every hour, he discards the innermost towel layer, and now his mask is nice and fresh.

Some styles of two-layer cloth masks have open sides through which paper towel might be folded widthwise and inserted from one side or the other, without recourse to stapling.

This is interesting. Anybody see a downside?

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Griff

This is interesting. Anybody see a downside?

Yes. If the paper towel is closest to your mouth, you can breathe in paper towel fibers. You don’t want that in your lungs. Paper towels are not lint free. However, if you have a two layer fabric mask, paper towels are excellent additional filtration material sandwiched between the two layers and I have done this myself. I tried a coffee filter first, but it was too difficult to breathe through. The cloth captures any paper towel lint/fibers.

We know wood dust from woodworking is terrible for your lungs. Paper towel fibers are also bad.

Those blue shop paper towels are a lot better.

[Griff]

So it could improve my pocketed mask, that's something.

I have two filthy homes on my caseload. I've been using disposable masks in those places and tossing them immediately as they smell like those places when I leave...