The question of mask wearing to protect one’s self and others from the Corona virus disease (also known as Covid-19) has raised arguments among members of the public, as well as discussions published in scientific journals. A few scientists suggest that there may be some benefit, but the majority of scientists affirm that wearing a mask is essentially of little or no value, and they say this for a good reason.

According to the paper, The Molecular Biology of Corona Viruses, published in Advances in Virus Research, Volume 66, the Corona virus varies between 50 and 200 nanometers in diameter. To give you an idea how small that is, an average human hair is 100,000 nanometers wide, so it would take between 500 to 2000 Corona viruses to cover the width of a human hair, yet the pores of all masks, including the best surgical masks and silk masks, are significantly larger than any virus, and most masks have the added problem of leakage. It is also worth mentioning that only medical masks, such as the N95 and FFP2 types, do not suffer significant leakage. However, there are reports of hospital workers experiencing headaches and tiredness due the fact that they are rebreathing some of their expired air. These type of ergonomically form-fitted masks cause the user to experience higher partial pressure of C02, which robs one's blood of optimum levels of oxygen and can (potentially) cause longer lasting conditions than headaches.

If you remain skeptical about the ineffectiveness of masks I invite you to watch this explicit and illuminating mask experiment by Dr Klaus Pelikan, University of Vienna, Department of Microbiology.