The mask that you would wear to protect yourself from wildfire smoke is not some flimsy surgical mask. Those only minimized aerosols coming out of your mouth, it’s not a filter, it doesn’t make wildfire smoke air safer to breath.
I think most people learned that because of COVID, didn’t they? N95s (worn properly) block 95% of pm2.5, which takes a danger level of 400 μg/m³ (well into the hazardous range) down to 20 μg/m³ (about half the cutoff for “unhealthy”).
Yet only a handful of people locally were wearing N95s when the levels were that high, locally. People just don’t care about their health, I guess? Not sure how else to interpret it.
I thought it was implied because of the comment that we all know how to do this because of the pandemic.
I don’t agree that the average person learned anything about masks, half of people refused to wear them, another quarter of people wore them but thought the surgical mask was filtering air for them.
Some people did learn about masks, that’s going to be over represented on a place like this full of smart people.
I think the message that people should just wear masks like they learned to do during the pandemic doesn’t convey enough information to be helpful for most people.
I agree with the suggestions for specific mask types that you gave in this most recent comment.
The mask that you would wear to protect yourself from wildfire smoke is not some flimsy surgical mask. Those only minimized aerosols coming out of your mouth, it’s not a filter, it doesn’t make wildfire smoke air safer to breath.
I think most people learned that because of COVID, didn’t they? N95s (worn properly) block 95% of pm2.5, which takes a danger level of 400 μg/m³ (well into the hazardous range) down to 20 μg/m³ (about half the cutoff for “unhealthy”).
Yet only a handful of people locally were wearing N95s when the levels were that high, locally. People just don’t care about their health, I guess? Not sure how else to interpret it.
Right, I didn’t try to imply the same masks, but there are so many options for cutting back on wildfire smoke particles.
N95, N99, P100… Any hardware store would carry these.
I thought it was implied because of the comment that we all know how to do this because of the pandemic.
I don’t agree that the average person learned anything about masks, half of people refused to wear them, another quarter of people wore them but thought the surgical mask was filtering air for them.
Some people did learn about masks, that’s going to be over represented on a place like this full of smart people.
I think the message that people should just wear masks like they learned to do during the pandemic doesn’t convey enough information to be helpful for most people.
I agree with the suggestions for specific mask types that you gave in this most recent comment.