Take The Mask Off; You Look Like An Idiot

Last week, I droned on about our community's attempt to bring green technology solutions to the citizens of Columbia. I must say, I was really proud of that particular post because it's the first time I wrote about the goings-on of local affairs relating to science and technology. I realize that there is a great amount of ground-breaking research and technological development that goes on here, particularly within the confines of the University of Missouri system. However, we have information outlets ranging from our two local newspapers to campus-based publications that include the Maneater and Mizzou Engineer Magazine that seem to do a decent job of sharing notable scientific news with the public.

With this in mind, I set about trying to find yet another local story that I could discuss (with myself) here on this blog. While perusing through the stories on the homepage of the Columbia Daily Tribune, I ran across an AP story about how experts believe that the swine flu epidemic is more or less over. I know that this is not local, but it struck me as something I should consider speaking my mind about. Now, before I continue, I should mention that I am not a medical or human health expert, so I would recommend taking nothing I subsequently say seriously; these are just the public ramblings of a man who is procrastinating when more pressing and important matters should really be dealt with. I should also mention that I did become ill with what I believe was the swine flu, and can say with all honesty that I've been a whole lot sicker than that in my life.

I remember when the swine flu scare began, and it seemed vividly familiar to when the SARS scare occurred, which was sometime around 2002-2003. Basically, I'm referring to news stories showing Chinese people walking around wearing paper masks. Let's be clear about one thing, though: people did indeed die from both of these diseases. The World Health Organization estimates a 10% mortality rate for those infected with SARS, which is not a trivial statistic. Most of the fatalities, however, occurred in the elderly, which is common for most pathogens, as the elderly have a somewhat suppressed immune system compared to the young. In the case of the swine flu, the number of infections was much greater than SARS, but the mortality rate was much lower; around 0.02%. What was particularly frightening about the swine flu was that a small number of relatively healthy, young people developed viral pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome due to the H1N1 virus, and consequently died. This is the main characteristic that caused the swine flu to stand out and cause a bit of a panic.

As I said, the image that sticks with me when I think about the swine flu outbreak was of the Chinese people on the nightly news wearing their paper masks. This caused me to scoff and shake my head at the television. Perhaps there is a logical reason that these masks might help lessen one's chances of contracting the virus, but I'm not seeing it. Like most common viral pathogens, such as the seasonal flu, the swine flu spreads primarily through contact with water droplets shed from an infected person coughing or sneezing, or touching an object after touching his/her mouth or nose. Oftentimes, those droplets are inhaled directly from the air. And so when I think about what those paper masks would be doing to help, I have to think that they're simply absorbing any infectious droplets or mist that could be in the air. The problem that I'm seeing here is that after absorbing the virus, the masks are just holding them there next to your pie-hole, giving them all the time in the world to gain access to your precious bodily fluids. So it would seem that wearing a mask would do nothing but slow - not stop - infection by the pathogen. But seeing people walking around with those things sure does a job of scaring the bejeezus out of everybody.