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elfsCommon “social” masks, the ones that you can sew at home and that can have some style and attractiveness to them, do not block oxygen intake.
I’ve seen this claim arise a number of times on Twitter and Facebook, and the proponents of them all link back to various “natural cures” sites that also encourage weird, unhealthy things like vaginal poultices, alkalinizing your bloodstream, and avoiding vaccinations. The claim is that the mask “captures” the CO2 you exhale and, as a result, you breathe less oxygen.
As it happens, I’m one of those STEM academic types who also happens to be handy with a sewing machine. And I’ve made a few masks, using various takes on the “Olson pattern.” I recommend stripping the metalized band on your bag of ground coffee and sewing it into the nose piece to make it easier to close and not fog up your glasses.
The Olson pattern I’m using creates a mask that’s 12.5cm x 8.5cm, which makes it about 106cm square. If you wear it against your face, it has less than a half-centimeter of clearance all around your mouth, so it has a volume of 50cc.
There are two common metrics for breathe volume: the “resting” respiratory volume, and the “exertion” respiratory volume, which is the amount we breathe when we’re recovering from vigorous physical activity. Without fail, the people making this claim are inevitably karens: white, middle-class women, so I’ll use the statistics for women’s air intake: the average woman has a 3400cc resting intake, and a 4300cc exertion intake.
An ordinary, home-made mask only captures 1.4% of the air you breathe, and you “recycle” so little CO2 that you only have to tap into 5% of your excess lung capacity to make up the difference.
To put this into perspective, outdoor air has one-quarter the amount of CO2 as that found in a well-ventilated building at one-half occupancy. While the karens of the world are worried about 1.4% of their CO2 intake, they’re neglecting the air quality inside their own homes and businesses, which has 50% higher CO2.
If being indoors in your own home isn’t a risk to your well-being, then neither is wearing a mask.
I’ve seen this claim arise a number of times on Twitter and Facebook, and the proponents of them all link back to various “natural cures” sites that also encourage weird, unhealthy things like vaginal poultices, alkalinizing your bloodstream, and avoiding vaccinations. The claim is that the mask “captures” the CO2 you exhale and, as a result, you breathe less oxygen.
As it happens, I’m one of those STEM academic types who also happens to be handy with a sewing machine. And I’ve made a few masks, using various takes on the “Olson pattern.” I recommend stripping the metalized band on your bag of ground coffee and sewing it into the nose piece to make it easier to close and not fog up your glasses.
The Olson pattern I’m using creates a mask that’s 12.5cm x 8.5cm, which makes it about 106cm square. If you wear it against your face, it has less than a half-centimeter of clearance all around your mouth, so it has a volume of 50cc.
There are two common metrics for breathe volume: the “resting” respiratory volume, and the “exertion” respiratory volume, which is the amount we breathe when we’re recovering from vigorous physical activity. Without fail, the people making this claim are inevitably karens: white, middle-class women, so I’ll use the statistics for women’s air intake: the average woman has a 3400cc resting intake, and a 4300cc exertion intake.
An ordinary, home-made mask only captures 1.4% of the air you breathe, and you “recycle” so little CO2 that you only have to tap into 5% of your excess lung capacity to make up the difference.
To put this into perspective, outdoor air has one-quarter the amount of CO2 as that found in a well-ventilated building at one-half occupancy. While the karens of the world are worried about 1.4% of their CO2 intake, they’re neglecting the air quality inside their own homes and businesses, which has 50% higher CO2.
If being indoors in your own home isn’t a risk to your well-being, then neither is wearing a mask.
