why we didn't wear masks

An anti-masker question I've been seeing going around Twitter is "did you wear masks before 2020?" Implying that if they're a good idea now even with covid vaccines, they would have been a good idea then against cold and flu, and if we didn't wear them, we're inconsistent or irrationally afraid.

Well no, I didn't wear masks, nor any American I knew. But it's not because we considered masks and made a decision not to wear them. It's because we never considered them at all. We didn't reject it as an option, we didn't even have it as an option.

I have a bit less excuse than most: I did know that the Japanese would wear masks when sick. But even so, when I flew from Seattle in Feb 2020 with my last cold, it never occurred to me that wearing a mask was something I could do. If someone had brought it up, probably I would have wondered where I could even find a mask, especially on short notice. If someone had handed me one and suggested I wear it on the plane to be courteous to others, quite likely I would have worn it! But without that, it wasn't even on the mental menu.

Likewise, when I was suffering through various years of hay fever, "buy masks and wear them against pollen" never occurred to me. No choice was made, it just was.

Now, though? Now I do have multiple masks -- respirators -- that are comfortable and should filter at least 90% of particles. (The material itself should be better than 99%, the uncertainty is about fit.) I'm used to wearing them. I also now know that some Californian friends *did* have N95s, for protection against wildfire smoke. I can envision using masks as protection against pollen and PM2.5 pollution. Now I'd say "if I'm on a plane and sick, why *wouldn't* I wear a mask? Or if someone on the plane is coughing behind me? If I'm walking along a busy road, why wouldn't I want to cut the particulates I'm breathing by at least 90%? Why were we so tolerant of breathing filthy air?"

88% masking

As the world rushes to surrender to covid-19, declaring it over even while case and death remain high or even rising, I feel the quixotic urge to remind people it doesn't have to be that way, and we could be cutting person-person transmission by 98%.

Getting high filtration material isn't hard now, any decent respirator or ASTM surgical mask qualifies; many respirators have tested as much better than their official certification of 94-95% at 0.3 microns, with over 99% filtration.

Getting good fit is much chancier, and most of us don't have access to professional fit testing, or even a DIY nebulizer test. But various results indicate that a reasonable attempt at fitting a respirator will be at least 88% protective, and using a surgical mask with a mask brace/fitter, even DIY with rubber bands, will get into the 90-95% range. And you can use mask braces with respirators too!

So you can get at least 88%, possibly close to 95%, if you want. And if everyone were wearing 88% masks, letting 12% through, what would get between two people would be 0.12^2, or 1.44%

This wouldn't stop all community transmission, if people go to restaurants/bars/gyms/parties a lot. Hell, if they do that, it probably wouldn't stop most community transmission, since being loud and unmasked is very very risky. But it would make other places safe, for the vulnerable and risk averse. And could crush covid if we masked and skipped dining out etc for a few weeks, far short of a full lockdown -- or as I put it, good masks are lockdowns for noses.