If you ever had the chance to visit Japan, any number of quirky things might have jumped out of you. You would have noticed the vending machines with coffee in cans. You would have marveled how the crowds followed every crosswalk sign to the letter. And you would have been surprised at the number of people walking around wearing surgical masks.
Certainly this last item doesn't seem so quirky anymore. Ever since Dr. Wu Lien Teh's pioneering work in the 1910 Manchurian Plague, masks have been hailed by epidemiologists as a "principal means of personal protection" with respiratory illnesses. And so once scientists confirmed that COVID was indeed primarily passed through airborne transmission, masks and mask wearing became the primary line of defense for most people around the world.
In the early days they were in short supply. We were asked to stay away from commercially-made surgical grade models so that front line health care workers could have first crack. And so like many others I dragged out an old sewing machine and stitched together various composite contraptions using leftover scraps of old flannel shirts and shoelaces. We tied bandannas around our faces, and did origami with rubber bands and handkerchiefs. Then, as we settled in for the long haul, better seamstresses took over, and now they are as much a fashion accessory as they as they are personal protective equipment.
But PPE they are. Most of us have long ago chucked the "any cloth in a storm" ones we started out with back in April, and have multiple versions purpose-built to filter out the bad stuff. Some are plain, some are fancy, some match our outfit and some our mood. But by and large they do the job. You don't have to take my word for it: study after study says that properly worn, properly constructed masks can reduce transmission in numbers up to 90%.
The devil, or course, is in the details. You have to wear them correctly, not below your nose protecting your chin. They have to fit tightly, with no gaps for air to get in or out. And they have to be made of tightly woven materials to trap particles, not an old AC DC tee shirt that was on its last legs. If it checks all those boxes, while you might not be vaccinated you still have a pretty good statistical chance of staying on the right side of the trend line.
But now there are some that say that one mask is not enough. The anecdotal argument seems to be that what one misses the second will catch. Also the second makes the first tighter and fit better. Never mind that the mask I wear is a three-ply device with three different materials, each designed to trap things a different way. And as to fit, why not adjust the first correctly? I've been taught to wear my seatbelt low and tight, which I do. I don't add a second one on the off chance I wear it high and loose. And now there are those that that say if two is good, then three must be even better.
Let me say that I am not questioning masks per se. I have no doubt that they are both necessary and effective, and would no sooner go without one than I would get in a car and not fasten my seatbelt. Additionally, as new information comes out, I am quite willing to adjust both my thinking and personal practices to reflect the best factual research that's out there. That's not flip-flopping to follow the crowd, that's learning to follow the data.
And so show me the proof, and I'll add another layer. Or even two. But it calls to mind a skit that ran on the very first "Saturday Night Live." It was the heyday the Gillette TRAC II razor, a new product for shaving that had not one, but two blades. SNL's mocumercial touted a revolutionary new version, showing slick animation that mirrored Gillette's. It demonstrated the new product, showing that while the FIRST blade stretched and cut the hair, and the SECOND one trimmed it further before it snapped back, a brand new THIRD blade made an even finer trim, "leaving your face as smooth as a billiard ball." The tag line? "The Triple-Trac. Because you'll believe anything."
Hold that thought.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford has masks for work and for play. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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