Member-only story
Of Masks and Spreading Germs
Warning/Note: Parts of this info-graphic were prepared based on the following study :Turbulent Gas Clouds and Respiratory Pathogen Emissions.And comments from Dr. John Campbell ( whose youtube channel has been tracking covid-19 for a while):To mask or not to maskThere are still many unknowns about how covid-19 actually spreads which I cover later and this is just one study, I do believe it is interesting and helpful especially in the moment.
According to the above sources normal breathing and talking can disperse your saliva and whatever germs ( pathogens technically) it carries about 2 meters or 6 1/2 feet, which as you can see is a really big distance.
Things don’t get better once our bodies unwittingly become dispersion agents trough coughing.
Sneezing ( the atchoo type ) is particularly effective as a weapon of mass pathogen dispersal.
Before you lock yourself into a closet with a gas mask for the rest of the year, let’s add nuance and context to the above graphics which imply that there simply is no way to avoid getting infected and spreading pathogens.
Known unknowns
Like the infamous quote, there are things that we simply do not know but it would be oh so convenient to know right now:
How long does a pathogen, in this case covid-19 can remain airborne, active and how far does it travel, to this effect some evidence has been found that covid-19 can travel through wastewater plumbing and can go back into the air after falling to the floor or other objects.
