1/ Here is one way to do a quick & dirty test of leakage around mask. Place several small mirrors or reading glasses in the fridge for 2 to 3 min. Avoid putting them in the freezer, as they will get too cold and you will get condensation on lenses when you remove it.
2/ Take first one out and place it directly in from of mask. As you breathe, the high water vapor content of your warm breath will condense on the lens, a good thing as it shows air going through mask.
3/ Now take out a second pair of glasses and put at edge of mask near chin, nose crease, or cheeks. You want to see as little, and preferably no, condensation as possible. In example below I purposely tweaked seal around nose to yield a small amount of condensation.
4/ Repeated with good seal and no visible condensation. This took about two minutes. Lack of visible condensation does not mean zero leakage, but does give a good indication of relative fit. Aim for zero visible condensation around edges and a lot adjacent to front of mask.
5/ Best to do front of mask first & edges after, as glass lenses will become cooler as they sit in fridge and yields a safety factor (makes it easier to get ample condensation even with small leakage as per 2nd set of images above).
6/ This is not a perfect fit test, but it does make use of the high absolute humidity on breath and is a bit more scientific than other methods I've seen people reporting.
7/ Wearing a mask has a dual benefit. It lowers your inhaled dose of virus-laden aerosol particles if you are in a space w/ an infected person (whether in near or far field in indoor space) & also lowers your emissions if you are infected, thus lowering inhaled dose of others.
8/ Simple example. The infected person wears a mediocre mask that captures 40% of emissions & you use a mask that removes 40% of virus-laden aerosol particles. The combination yields a 64% reduction in your inhaled dose of aerosol particles (whether close contact or far field).
9/ Now, let's say that a better mask is used or a much better fit of the first mask is obtained, yielding 80% reduction in emissions and removal during inhalation by receptor. This yields an overall reduction of 96% in inhaled dose of aerosol particles. HUGE reduction.
10/ The delta variant is highly transmissible & destroying and taking lives. Wear a higher quality mask if possible. Try to get as good of a fit as possible. Protect yourself. Protect others. Just Do It!

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More from @CorsIAQ

5 Aug
1/ Aware that one school district hired a consulting firm to do CO2 measurements in classrooms when no students (at all during the day - U*G*G*H*H) were present and concluded the rooms are well ventilated. This makes no sense, folks. This makes no sense. Wasted money.
2/ Aware that in another case a school district did CO2 "spot checks" for a few minutes in classrooms. This often happens if a firm wants to measure CO2 in all classrooms and is limited in instruments and time.
3/ Time-averaged values during entire occupied periods can be improtant and "spot checks" can be woefully deceiving depending on when collected.
Read 10 tweets
30 Jul
1/ K-12 schools open in a few weeks. We did not do the right thing over a year ago to prepare schools to significantly reduce inhalation dose of aerosol particles that convey SARS-CoV-2. Most schools are not doing the right thing. We seem wholly paralyzed as a nation.
2/ In November 2020, I was interviewed by @KGWNews in Portland. Snippets of what I said were used on the show - "We blew it as a nation" and "It's all about lowering (inhalation) dose". kgw.com/article/news/h…
3/ And now we have this, a delta variant far more transmissible, w/ greater impact on children than original virus, & breakthrough infections of those vaccinated that (while 100 to 200 x safer in terms of serious outcomes) can infect others.

cnn.com/2021/07/29/pol…
Read 10 tweets
25 Jul
1/ Recently heard advertisement for a device that removes 99+% of virus that causes COVID-19 from treated air. To many this might sound like the device removes 99% of viruses in room or building air. This is highly unlikely in a real-world setting.
2/ It is not clear how the company arrived at 99+% removal of SARS-CoV-2 virus and whether this means inactivation of the virus or removal of aerosol particles that convey the virus.
3/ It is not clear whether this figure was derived from a very small chamber with low ventilation that the device was placed in, whether "treated air" means air that flows through the device, or something else.
Read 9 tweets
19 Jul
"fine aerosols constituted 85% of the viral load detected in our study." "Exposure to fine aerosols should be mitigated, especially in indoor environments."

Still in peer review, but preliminary results confirm what many of us have said for 15 mos. 1/

medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
Reduction of inhalation dose of aerosol particles is critical to win this deadly war, particularly amongst the unvaccinated. Mitigate by wearing masks, increasing ventilation (including more activities outdoors), improved central filtration, portable HEPA filtration. 2/
Remember that only about 13% of the world's population is fully vaccinated, the Delta variant is a beast, and 3/
Read 4 tweets
18 Jul
Unsung Heroes of Academia

In academia we talk a lot about, and celebrate, the successes of students and faculty, and we should. IMO we do not talk enough about or celebrate the tremendous contributions of staff, the gears that keep the academic machine running hour to hour. 1/
They advise prospective students, help guide & encourage current students, support advancement of diversity, equity and inclusion, help faculty and students with a wide range of teaching and research activities, maintain and upgrade IT, clean and ... 2/
fix infrastructure, balance books, clean and fix infrastructure, and so much more. 3/
Read 8 tweets
17 Jul
1/ Recently met a couple who are not vaccinated and who do not mask. It was outdoors, yet I wore a mask and distanced. When I tried to present a series of facts about the importance of vaccinations their response was consistently "our friends tell us differently."
2/ These are not folks who fit the stereotypical anti-vaxxers as seen on social media or television. Their beliefs come from friends who attend their church. They were polite and from our conversation I found out also highly educated.
3/ I failed at convincing them that they should become vaccinated. I am not a social scientist or, perhaps most importantly, one of their friends at church. This exercise reinforced my belief that academics on social media will have little impact on increasing vaccination rates.
Read 4 tweets

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