Maybe get ahead of this one.
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May get attacked for asking this, but what’s the molecule size of variola? Would masks actually help with this one?
Just thinking it would be very dastardly to make everyone realize masks do nothing to stop COVID and then release a nastier virus that would be helped by mask use after everyone doesn’t use them.
Masks are pretty useless for the average person because they don’t have a seal against the face, and people touch them with their hands.
Most viruses are too small for a mask to be effective, but even if they weren’t, people touch their masks, spreading particles around.
Doctors wear them for bacteria, and it’s usually for the patient’s benefit, not their own. They also wear rubber gloves and sterilize their hands to go along with masks.
Agreed about the separate steps.
You also have to change masks out every two hours to stay uncontaminated.
Just didn’t know if properly fitted N95’s might provide some protection if the variola molecule is larger.
It it helps reassure you, smallpox transmissibility in practice is much lower than you would think, and in endemic conditions, the average infected person will spread smallpox to less than one other person.
Smallpox is most contagious when symptoms are apparent, so if we quarantine those with the telltale rash, it is incredibly effective.
I knew you needed prolonged contact inside to really spread through aerosols/being around a sick person. That one doctor who slept in the same bed as his brother with an active rash and never got the pox himself comes to mind.
Just kind of sucky that we even have to consider this again, lol.