I donned a 3M Aura 9210+ respirator 20 times to measure loss of protection.

Repeated donnings appear to gradually erode protection, but the impact measured is small, and not detectable using candle smoke, only saline aerosol.

🧵 I had performed another experiment (yet to be published) which required multiple donnings, and noticed that fit-tests performed using candle smoke failed to detect a gradual loss in fit that was apparent when using saline.

So I went on a side quest to explore this phenomenon.

People keep arguing that "outdoor transmission is rare", so I need to explain something.

Small iterated risks are certainties.

If you keep doing a dangerous thing over and over, you will get burned.

🧵 Someone made a wild guess that the risk of outdoor transmission "is 1%".

There is no solid data to back that up, but let's start with that assumption.

Let's say on average throughout the year, 1 in 50 people are infectious.

Things I miss being able to do since Long COVID:

- Running
- Cycling
- Visiting family a medium distance away, which is now a Herculean task
- Consistently sleep 8 hours
- Weightlifting
- Reading books as much as I want
- Standing upright for prolonged periods

🧵 - Sitting in a chair and not experiencing unrelenting chronic pain
- Walking into a room and knowing why I walked in there
- Eating junk food
- Drinking coffee, a brutal loss, because coffee is delicious but it makes my symptoms much worse (yes, even decaf)

I soaked a 3M Aura 9210+ in 70% isopropyl alcohol.

It destroyed the electrostatic charge and obliterated respirator performance.

This proves the PortaCount can detect dangerous mods. 🧵 Why would I do this? It's a positive control for my mask modding safety experiments.

In previous experiments I was able to show that graphite pencil and at least one brand of water-soluble marker *do not* impact respirator performance, even if you go buckwild with your designs.

IF ONLY THERE WAS SOME WAY TO OBTAIN STERILIZING IMMUNITY

https://twitter.com/PeterHotez/status/1820086522189664452

Hotez has not tweeted the word "mask" since September 7 2023, and has only used the word "respirator" one time EVER.

I made a Black Aura*.

I coated a 3M Aura 9210+ in Derwent Academy black water soluble marker, and measured the resulting fit factor using a PortaCount 8020A in N99 mode. There was no meaningful impact on performance.

* It came out gray. 🧵 I performed 3 sets of 3 normal breathing exercises wearing a 3M Aura 9210+ respirator, with a redonning in between each set. I then spent about 45 minutes coating the entire outer surface in Derwent Academy black marker.

And yes, it was exactly as satisfying as you'd think.

I drew all over this 3M Aura 9210+ with a graphite pencil and measured the resulting fit factor using a PortaCount 8020A.

There was no meaningful loss in protection. 🧵 I performed 6 normal breathing exercises wearing a 3M Aura 9210+ respirator, then spent about 45 minutes drawing a bunch of bubbles all over it.

For this experiment I wanted something easy to draw which would use up a lot of pencil graphite, simulating some ambitious art.

I have seen the thread about the positive test despite extensive COVID precautions. And I have opinions.

But I think we need to cool it with the criticism. Can you imagine testing positive and then going online for some emotional support and then just getting shit on? Let's say you wear a fit-tested disposable N95 everywhere and never ever take it off under any circumstances.

And somehow you still get infected.

Should people be writing that BRO YOU SHOULD HAVE WORN ELASTO BROOOOO?

Okay here's where I'm at.

If people are normalizing reducing precautions, that should be criticized.

If people are normalizing increasing precautions, that should be encouraged. Note the words "reducing" and "increasing".

If you're reducing precautions, you're probably already taking some.

If you're increasing precautions, you're probably not taking any.

We need the vast bulk of people who are not taking precautions to do more, and make it normal.

Okay so everybody wants to click the phishing link but DO NOT CLICK IT!

If you really want to know what happens, I gotchu.

I received this mystery DM from a mutual, which is a very obvious phishing scam.

🧵 I extracted the URL in a safe manner and analyzed it to see what is going on. It implements a series of redirects which goes through VK (a Russian social network), then Instagram, then Facebook, and finally lands on a domain I won't share.

omg omg omggggg 🔥🔥🔥

3M is now listing the Aura 9210+ in their Safe Guard system. If this is accurate, you can buy this model of Aura from anywhere with absolute confidence in authenticity.

3m.com/3M/en_US/respi…
The Safe Guard is basically a 2FA token inside the box. When you enter it into the 3M website, they verify it as authentic (i.e. known to and issued by them). The token is then invalidated and cannot be used again.

This is how to frame the issue. The term "mask bans" reinforces the frame that masks and bans go together, and wastes left-wing moral language and symbolism on centrists and conservatives who don't care about those things.

We demand FREEDOM FROM INFECTION 😷

https://twitter.com/aliceinempire/status/1805671804675277264

We can do even better, I just don't know how yet.

Conservatives *want* to infect the population, so freedom *from* infection is not attractive to them. The "freedom" part is.

Voting for the real option: The entire medical system needs to be dismantled and rethought. Shuffling the deck chairs isn't going to get us very far.

Would you rather be gaslit and misdiagnosed by an MD or an NP?

https://twitter.com/CMichaelGibson/status/1805012827373027414

One of the best things we could possibly do is enable patients to switch practitioners effortlessly.

Bad interaction? Say nope and be seeing someone new by late afternoon.

Keep switching until you find someone who actually respects you and approaches their work with integrity.

If we want to fight COVID effectively, we cannot have a toxic community which eats its own.

I have taken the extraordinary step of blocking every single person who retweeted this bullshit. Attacking the people who are engineering safety systems harms the communities you claim to defend.

We must not tolerate this petulant, childish behavior any longer. It has to stop.

I updated my graph of reinfection Long COVID cumulative risk to include a new 2024 study, and also plotted zero infections just to clarify how bad the situation is! The studies:

Bowe et al. 2022


Marra et al. 2023


de Bruijn et al. 2023


Bosworth et al. 2023
nature.com/articles/s4159…
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

I just want to note something about survivorship bias.

In a few years you'll know people with 20 COVID infections who "seem fine".

The ones that died will not be around, so you can't observe them "seeming fine". They're dead. Judging based on people you meet in the world, COVID will always "seem fine" because the dead people aren't around to convince you otherwise.

If bird flu goes human to human and has 50% mortality, and both you and your partner get it, there is a 75% chance one of you will die.

If you have two kids also, there is a 93% chance one of you will die.

Wear a fit-tested respirator and build DIY air purifiers now. You can either freeze up and roll the dice or start loading metaphorical shells today.

The antimaskers did not stop to ponder if their tone was appropriate when screaming at business owners about mask requirements. They just did it, and got the world that they wanted.

Meanwhile leftists continue their neverending campaign of losing. "Am I being too mean?" Leftists are fundamentally confused about how power works.

They use violence. You don't.

They have all the power. You don't.

Do you get it yet?

The coroner said the cause was probably post-acute symptoms from COVID infection. The causes of death were recorded as accidents.

COVID is killing people and it is not showing up in the official numbers because we're intentionally hiding it.

https://twitter.com/dupuisj/status/1796697441435050356

The guy driving behind the taxi and the coroner are *both* named O'Connell 😂

New study appears to show late onset of Long COVID and post-COVID conditions even 3 years after mild infection. 😳

nature.com/articles/s4159…
I guess it's possible that doctors could have missed the diagnoses in the first year, but I'm skeptical that this would apply in 100% of cases.

"[O]utcomes were defined using [ICD-10] diagnosis codes, medical prescriptions and laboratory measurements"

I take serious airborne precautions and serious fomite precautions.

Airborne precautions are way easier. It's not even close. It doesn't make any sense that the WHO and CDC are so focused on fomites, because that's actually the HARDER standard to implement.

Yes, there are challenges with airborne precautions. No, it's not harder than washing your hands 50x per day and disinfecting every surface.