I also questioned the vialibily of face masks early on in the the covid scare..
I have grown mushrooms at home for many years and to prevent contamination entering my grain bags and jars, I have to use an extremely fine filters.
I use a Microppose Synthetic Filter Discs which have a 99.97% Filtration efficiency down to 0.22μm (microns).
The standard face mask is 0.3μm and is 95% efficient at 0.3 microns. This means that the filter media is effective at filtering 95% of airborne particles as long as they are larger than 0.3 microns in diameter.
The Coronavirus molecules tend to be about 0.1 microns in diameter
Masks do not prevent Coronavirus molecules from passing through the mask, However, Coronavirus molecules do not float freely around in the air and usually travel around as part of fluid droplets that become airborne created by coughing and sneezing.
These droplets are supposed to be about 0.5μm so the masks could prevent water droplets from entering the body.
You might benefit from a more robust understanding of filtration mechanisms and updating your mental model of airborn covid to include the medium in which it's broadcast. Folks aren't outgassing raw virii with no associated droplet material, so your particle size is off. Additionally N95 can absolutely filter particulate well below the rated 0.3 microns, it's just less effective at doing so. Summary: masks absolutely filter airborn covid when rated material is used with correct fitment.
I don't think that matters. We exhale so much moisture that cloth masks are saturated in 10-15 minutes, and after that the air pressure just recreates the droplets as it goes through the mask, spreading it from the outside.
Lol what. You do understand that van der Waals force is a significant driver of filtration at this scale yes? We're not talking about corralling coffee grounds here.
I have grown mushrooms at home for many years and to prevent contamination entering my grain bags and jars, I have to use an extremely fine filters.
I use a Microppose Synthetic Filter Discs which have a 99.97% Filtration efficiency down to 0.22μm (microns).
The standard face mask is 0.3μm and is 95% efficient at 0.3 microns. This means that the filter media is effective at filtering 95% of airborne particles as long as they are larger than 0.3 microns in diameter.
The Coronavirus molecules tend to be about 0.1 microns in diameter
Masks do not prevent Coronavirus molecules from passing through the mask, However, Coronavirus molecules do not float freely around in the air and usually travel around as part of fluid droplets that become airborne created by coughing and sneezing.
These droplets are supposed to be about 0.5μm so the masks could prevent water droplets from entering the body.
I still have my doubts though.