Farce mask: it’s safe for only 20 minutes
by tts-admin | Apr 28, 2021 |
Sydney Morning Herald – April 27, 2003
Retailers who cash in on community fears about SARS by exaggerating the health benefits of surgical masks could face fines of up to $110,000.
NSW Fair Trading Minister Reba Meagher yesterday warned that distributors and traders could be prosecuted if it was suggested the masks offered unrealistic levels of protection from the disease.
“I’m sure everyone would agree that it is un-Australian to profiteer from people’s fears and anxieties,” Ms Meagher said.
“There appears to be some debate about whether surgical masks are able to minimise the effects of SARS.”
Ms Meagher said her department would investigate any complaints about false mask claims which concerned the public.
“Penalties can range from fines of up to $22,000 for an individual or $110,000 for a corporation,” she said.
Health authorities have warned that surgical masks may not be an effective protection against the virus.
“Those masks are only effective so long as they are dry,” said Professor Yvonne Cossart of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney.
“As soon as they become saturated with the moisture in your breath they stop doing their job and pass on the droplets.”
Professor Cossart said that could take as little as 15 or 20 minutes, after which the mask would need to be changed. But those warnings haven’t stopped people snapping up the masks, with retailers reporting they are having trouble keeping up with demand.
John Bell from the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, who owns a pharmacy in Woollahra, Sydney, said mask supplies were running low.
“At the moment we don’t have any because we haven’t been able to get any in the last few days,” MrBell said. “In the early stages it was unbelievable; we’d get people coming in all the time.”
Mr Bell agreed with Professor Cossart’s assessment regarding the effectiveness of the masks.
“I think they’re of marginal benefit,” he said. “In a way they give some comfort to people who think they’re doing as much as they can do to prevent the infection.”
That seems to be the mentality of travellers to Asian destinations, who are buying and wearing the masks while overseas.
Rosemary Taylor, of Kirribilli, arrived in Sydney from Shanghai last week after a two-week holiday in China. Ms Taylor and travelling companion Joan Switzer had worn the masks during the trip home, even though they had been warned they were of little value.
“We were told you need 16 layers on your mask for it to offer 95per cent protection,” Ms Taylor said.
Source
“I’m sure everyone would agree that it is un-Australian to profiteer from people’s fears and anxieties,” Ms Meagher said. In all likelihood, I think that ain’t so. Some Australian will profit mightily and take immense pride they did so. Many more Australians will suffer the consequences of blind obedience to The Power$ That Be. Retailers be caught in the proverbial “between a rock and a hard place”.
Best that people simply stop wearing facial coverings. Period. There are several more critical layers of this onion to peel, tasks that do not require a mask at all.
Every time you inhaling through a face mask you attracting all surrounding bacteria into the mask you keep inhaling all surrounding bacteria constantly trapped in the mask making u a mask lab of virusses and very stupid and very sick.The mask traps bacteria and makes it worse by your exhaling into the mask as it breeds in high humidity.What does the mask do.It makes you sick.Masks are only for blood splatter and dust but cannot stop viruses, so well useless in this catogory.Stop wearing these death tools.
Then there is the black nanoworms in many face masks. I’m sure Hates is happy with them being there but you should not be very happy with worms on your face.WHO knows where they going?
<The WHO is advocating wearing nano worm invested china facemasks a bigger threat currently to the world than covid and vaccines because we dont know what these black nano worms are nor why the WHO is ignoring this subject.Untill the WHO accepts and investigate this matter stay away from these masks and the vaccine, it all seems like a plot to cull the herd of useless eaters.US!! Why did the UN just give us all wormless masks in the first place??I dont like these worms they are creepy and on my face all day , no thank you I have seen them up close and they seem very much alive.Shit no.Thank you but no.
It’s obvious that the world has been taken over by loonies. Stark raving mad.
I even hear that the various economies are doing alright.
It’s mayhem. And ALL these people are thinking of fighting the Russians and Chinese???
I must have knocked my head and gone into a coma. ALL this is a bad dream.
About the nanoworms, it is a fungus that grows on cotton but we do not normally wake it up with moisture and heat as with breath in the masks. People will be breathing the spores in if the mask is worn for long. That is all the way to the lungs.
If surgical face masks are that dangerous, how come surgeons carrying out complicated operations for hours on end in hospitals don’t seem to be affected? Perhaps I’m missing something? If so, please forgive my ignorance.
You are forgiven.
To ChasMick–I think surgeons wear a succession of masks during a long operation, but nor do they live very long anyway.