I want to believe you are genuine in this and I think that your anger is justified, just misdirected. There are two issues with this, though.
First, your article is about continued increased CO2 levels in the environment over prolonged periods. You're making the jump to think that the wearing of a mask, face covering, etc is going to make the same jump in CO2 inhalation as seen in this study, and there's no proof of that. In fact, it's unlikely that is the case because of the permeability of the mask.
Second, the issue with the discourse around it is justified. The way that American political discourse is situated there's only Republican stance v democrat stance and no room for nuance in it. You even say:
we should be sending workers back home whose labor is completely nonessential
Which is right. There's no reason for places to really be open right now with the rate of infection in the US. We never really got to a point of getting it under control, but the market demanded sacrifices so here we are. We have tons of workers forced back to nonessential work in substandard conditions with inadequate precautions being taken to prevent the spread of a deadly virus all in the name of profit margins.
Your issue shouldn't be with masks, but with capitalism and it's need for continued growth to keep functioning.
Where are you making the connection that wearing a mask increases CO2 concentrations by any measurable amount? Like, sure, breathing in more CO2 is bad, but are masks doing that, or are you just guessing that they might?
And, the obvious follow-up: are said side effects, if present, worse than getting/spreading Covid? For example, the meds I take for epilepsy have quite a few downsides, including the price, but it's still a lot fucking better than having seizures.like yeah mask wearing isnt going to be worse than covid by any means, but the solution is to just send people home, or at the very least, give people actually decent masks
I agree that wearing a mask for 8 hours for work is hard but you dont get any brain damage from it
You have this perfect opportunity to dress up in a luchador mask with no repercussions and you're complaining?
Pitiful.
yeah, i would say that based from your posts, masks aren't the problem, but poor working conditions and the general malaise of capitalism is not compatible with full-shift mask-wearing for the long term.
sucks, but you're right. im glad youre staying safe,
Literally no proof included here that masks increase CO2 levels in this. You just assume this and orientate everything else around that, which is obviously fallacious. One would assume that Asia would have covered this already, and yet I haven't heard of this phenomenon happening there.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7132714/
And this study literally says: "Long-term use of respiratory protection did not result in any clinically relevant physiologic burden for health care personnel, although many subjective symptoms were reported. N95 compliance was fairly high."
"CO2 levels increased from a baseline average of 32.4 at the beginning of the shift to 41.0 at the end of each shift. There were no changes in nurses’ blood pressure, O2 levels, perceived comfort, perceived thermal comfort, or complaints of visual difficulties compared with baseline levels."
"An interesting finding from this study is that, although the nurses did not experience any clinically significant negative physiologic effects from wearing respiratory protection, they reported many subjective symptoms. For example, perceived shortness of breath increased over time when nurses wore any type of respiratory protection. Although physiologic measures of heart rate, O2, and CO2 did not reflect a difficulty with gas exchange, nurses reported feeling more short of breath the longer they wore respiratory protection. Other subjective symptoms also increased over time, including complaints of headache, lightheadedness, perceived exertion, and impeded communication. When wearing an N95 with mask overlay, nurses reported feeling more nausea and had more visual challenges than when they wore only an N95. Although these symptoms do not represent life-threatening conditions, they are unpleasant and may affect health care personnel’s willingness or ability to tolerate long-term N95 usage that would be necessary during a disaster."
That second one is specifically an N95 mask plus a surgical mask. The one I linked did just the N95 alone and then also the N95 + surgical mask on top of that.
The evidence suggests that placement of an SM on one type of FFR improved inhaled breathing gas concentrations over the FFR without SM; the placement of an SM over an FFR+EV probably will prevent the EV from opening, regardless of activity intensity; and, at lower levels of energy expenditure, EVs in FFR do not open either with or without an SM.
They even specially mention this in the results section. And in the conclusions saying
"The differences in inhaled gas concentrations in FFR+Surgical Mask and FFR-only were significant. The orientation of the SM on the FFR may have a significant effect on the inhaled breathing quality and breathing resistance, although the measurable inhalation and exhalation pressures caused by SM over FFR for healthcare users probably will be imperceptible at lower activity levels."
You're fucking removed, holy shit. Get off this site. You literally didn't read it and I'm sure you think "statistically significant" means "obviously bad."
They wear masks all the time, you fucking dip. You're literally blinding yourself to fit your narrative.
what they're saying is that in other countries it is normal to wear masks even before this pandemic, and therefore if it were a significant health concern it is likely this would have been found out by those countries
if it were a significant health concern it is likely this would have been found out by those countries
There are tons of ordinary industrial/commercial practices that are harmful, but the harm is not obvious enough to be immediately noticed, or there's some other interest (classically, the interests of capital) that acts to prevent an honest investigation.
Not saying that's necessarily the case here; only that we definitely don't live in a world where significant health concerns are noticed promptly.
There are tons of ordinary industrial/commercial practices that are harmful
This isn't an industrial/commercial practice, though, but a widespread social one.
Well, it's both. But I'm not really talking about how to characterize mask wearing -- I'm saying that we have tons of examples of harmful practices (many of which happen to be industrial/commercial practices) that are not immediately recognized as such.
Revealing your hand pretty hard here. It's literally about aesthetics to you. Stop calling yourself an ML if you abandon scientific thought as soon as it becomes inconvenient for your un-scientific feelings.
Hi! I'm an environmental engineering student and I just reached out to some of my professors who do this sort of modeling to see if they have any thoughts about the issue. They've all been privileged enough to work from home and probably have never considered this. Will keep you updated if I hear anything.
Tbh I'm 90% sure that poster is a wrecker.
You make a great argument and it's sad to see so many handwave it away as some sort of reactionary bullshit when it's literally pro-worker and anti-death-cult.
It was mostly the account age + the volume of posts, but I was overzealous with that accusation, so I apologize.
90% sure
Remember this post the next time you decide to call the cops, oops I mean mods on someone because they made a post you didn't like.
I have to wear a mask at work all day in a largely non-climate controlled environment. We have been having regular 90-degree 90% humidity days since the heat wave started and when you're wearing a cloth mask over both your mouth and nose it's practically impossible to breathe properly. Just standing outside for five minutes waiting for the whistle to ring in that heat is pretty much unbearable and I just uncover my nose most of the time when I'm not close to other workers. If you use a dinky little paper mask it's easier to breathe but if you physically exert yourself even slightly you sweat so profusely it ruins the mask in seconds.
I'm not really sure about the CO2 effects. From what I've been reading about the research so far, it doesn't seem like a big factor. I'm sorry but it's late and I'm too lazy to read your links right now.
I just wanted to say that I work in food service and I have to wear a mask eight hours a day and it really fucking sucks. It really pisses me off when our patrons bitch and whine that they have to wear a mask for a couple of hours at a place they choose to be.
I haven't personally noticed any difference in how I feel or cognitive effects from wearing a paper mask all the time at work except I have worse acne.
I don't think it's invalid to bring up these things so you can talk about it in a non-chud setting. It sucks that people are being shitty to you when you're just trying to figure shit out that affects your daily life. Stay safe.
