Unmasking a Thought Experiment...with your help.
Always before the sun has gotten up on the saddle to march its way over the sky, a thought punctures the quiet. The quiet is solemn, yet thinking, conjuring, manipulating various events around me. But this thought might have some veracity and a sharp prick to boot.
Consider a person wearing a mask.
Having considered that in your mind’s eye, allow me to divulge the fluid dynamics of the aerosolized breath that this person exhales. The normal vector is mostly straight ahead with the heavier aerosolized wet particles falling closer and the tinier ones floating in the breeze a bit longer. Okay now that you have the picture in your head, let us plan on keeping this individual in a calm wind environment to keep the variables limited. Now imagine him coughing. Those same vectorized particles have more momentum to go a longer distance, don’t they? Indeed, they do.
So, having established the basic principles of fluid dynamics now comes the thought experiment: Place a mask on him. Ah, you say we have captured most of his exhaled and coughed up particles within the confines of the mask. Voila! Science works! Indeed, it does.
But then in that sphere of excellence of thought, commit to yourself the following variable: The individual is infected with a Virus. “Good” you say, we have successfully shut down most of the transmission with the multi-layered surgical mask. Yes, we might have done so although science is still in the hypothetical phase, but fluid dynamics suggest that the expression of the aerosolized droplets do decrease substantially and thus any person not in the immediate vicinity will probably not catch the virus at all. Perhaps the minimal viral load transmission even if you are near will be negated by a normal immune response, to ward off the infection.
But what of the masked “bandit?”
Now here is where this gets interesting. The mask wearing “bandit” with the virus might be an elderly person in the early phase of his viral illness. He is wearing the mask and rebreathing his own exhaled breath. For every breath 80-90% is rebreathed. So, the expressed virus is being rebreathed. Stay for a focused second and take that in. Perhaps the gentleman or lady (no longer a “bandit” has the virus mostly in the nasopharyngeal tract, but now with the rebreathing his or her own breath is breathing the virus directly into his or her lungs. Two situations now potentially exist:
1. If the individual has a weak Immune system, then the virus multiplies geometrically and overwhelms the immunity. That means a progressive increase in the viral load and limited support from the barrier against the virus, the Immune system. The progression of fever, chills, sweats and pneumonia beckons a tough road to hoe.
2. If the immune system is robust in this individual and triggers a hyperimmune response which as in COVID creates a Cytokine Storm of inflammation in the cardiovascular, (Heart and blood vessels) and pulmonary (Bronchial tree and the lungs) system. Medicine is still grappling with the most righteous course to follow in the late stages of the infection. Ventilators have been out for a while and ECMO is in along with everything we have to throw against the virus and the inflammatory response along with a prayer and hope.
Bot event have deadlier consequences if you think about it.
Empirical remains at present. But no one seems to want to go there…yet. The basic question then is do masked infected people cause harm to themselves? Your guess at this juncture is as good as mine.
Remembering this is a thought experiment, chime in and express yourself. After all Science is better serves with critique and contrary point of view. Go ahead and make your day and mine!
Here are some references:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7205645/
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/scientific-brief-sars-cov-2.html
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20027375/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2905057/
