Wearing masks...

[HeatherC]

Thank you for the recommendation! How nice that she’s giving her patterns away for free. I’m going to make several for my family.

They work really well! I tried the bandana kind with ponytail holders but they did not stay on. These ones stay on which makes it easier when you are in the grocery store and can’t touch your face. Good luck!

 

[HeatherC]

And why do I see ppl riding around in their cars by themselves with it on??

It could be because they are on the way home from shopping and do not want to touch their faces. Waiting to take them off properly when they get home avoids cross contamination in the car, etc.

 

[ronandannette]

Even if they are wearing them wrong or touch their faces, there is the possibility that if they are asymptomatic this could prevent them from spreading the virus to someone else. So wearing one may not stop someone from getting the virus, (particularly if they keep touching it), but it could prevent them from spreading it to someone else.

I wear mine because others will feel better if I have it on, not because I believe I will be any safer.

If I see people in the store and they even have just a bandanna on their face covering their mouth and nose, I will appreciate them for trying. I'm not going to fault people for not wearing 3-ply cloth masks with filtration systems.

I'm all for doing whatever we're required to do, but I marvel that there still might be people who believe wearing a non-certified mask will protect them from breathing in the virus. It won't. The entire purpose is to perhaps limit the spread of the virus from someone who has it, they are literally useless to stop us from inhaling anything that might be airborne.

There was also a post up-thread that talked about store personnel wearing their masks wrong. It matters little here - I haven't been in a single store for weeks that didn't have the cashiers all walled-off behind 3-sided plastic shields that only have a slot cut in the bottom for things to be passed through. We couldn't sneeze or breathe on each other if we wanted to.

 

[Southernmiss]

And why do I see ppl riding around in their cars by themselves with it on??

So I don't forget to put it on at my destination, which I did yesterday.

 

[Notrealname]

Lysol or alcohol ruins the electromagnetic properties of the N95 respirator to make it work. I don't have an N95 but I have a few paper masks. There was a medical professional on TV last week stating that if you have to reuse your paper masks, one way to sanitize them is by "baking" them in the oven at 170 degrees for 30 minutes, which is what I've been doing and the mask holds up great.

Now, the N95 is trickier because of the respirator but I did find this:

The safest and easiest way to kill off the coronavirus is to put your N95’s in a food dehydrator for 30 minutes. Most can be set at 155F to 165F but most people don’t have one.
If you have an oven that can drop the temperature to 160F that would be ideal but very few exist. Most ovens won’t heat below 180F. You could preheat the oven to 180F. Wrap the N95 mask in aluminum foil place it in the center of an oven making sure it’s not near any heating elements and heat it for 30 minutes. The aluminum helps keep the mask clean and prevents hot spots inside. Aluminum foil is not mandatory but a good Idea as ovens are not clean environments. Some problems you could run into are getting the mask too hot and damaging or melting the rubber strap.

Electromagnetic????
Questioning that does not mean I’m questioning the advice to to use products one should not ingest or inject.

 

[MarkLT1]

There was also a post up-thread that talked about store personnel wearing their masks wrong. It matters little here - I haven't been in a single store for weeks that didn't have the cashiers all walled-off behind 3-sided plastic shields that only have a slot cut in the bottom for things to be passed through. We couldn't sneeze or breathe on each other if we wanted to.

I think the one big advantage to a cashier wearing a mask is as a reminder not to touch their face. Unfortunately, a cashier is probably at highest risk to get virus particles on their hands, as they are constantly touching products (to ring them up) and cash, which has been touched/handled by many others.

Even worse is the person at Costco that checks your receipt on the way out. It is one or two people at the door, who now have a contact point with every single individual who purchased something in the store. If a person had virus particles on their hands, and touches the receipt, then transfers it to the glove of the receipt checker, that glove is now potentially transferring virus particles to receipts handled afterwords. I have started just holding up my receipt for them to look at (through the plexi-glass) rather than passing it under the slot for them to handle.

 

[ronandannette]

I think the one big advantage to a cashier wearing a mask is as a reminder not to touch their face. Unfortunately, a cashier is probably at highest risk to get virus particles on their hands, as they are constantly touching products (to ring them up) and cash, which has been touched/handled by many others.

Even worse is the person at Costco that checks your receipt on the way out. It is one or two people at the door, who now have a contact point with every single individual who purchased something in the store. If a person had virus particles on their hands, and touches the receipt, then transfers it to the glove of the receipt checker, that glove is now potentially transferring virus particles to receipts handled afterwords. I have started just holding up my receipt for them to look at (through the plexi-glass) rather than passing it under the slot for them to handle.

Most definitely. Touching things is a far, far greater risk than inhaling the airborne virus. And no matter how careful we are, we can't even begin to be consciously aware of how many surfaces we actually touch and how many times those surfaces have been touched by others. For every 1 precaution we're taking (sanitizing our take-out bags or not buying bulk produce or whatever) there are probably 10 other instances of exposure when we're just on "auto-pilot".

We can only be so careful, which is why I truly believe it's only a matter of time before most of us will eventually contract Covid. Blessedly, the vast majority will recover just fine, if they become symptomatic at all, and I don't say this to minimize the fact that it is a disease with the potential to be fatal to any of us.

 

[nicolita3]

I think the one big advantage to a cashier wearing a mask is as a reminder not to touch their face. Unfortunately, a cashier is probably at highest risk to get virus particles on their hands, as they are constantly touching products (to ring them up) and cash, which has been touched/handled by many others.

Even worse is the person at Costco that checks your receipt on the way out. It is one or two people at the door, who now have a contact point with every single individual who purchased something in the store. If a person had virus particles on their hands, and touches the receipt, then transfers it to the glove of the receipt checker, that glove is now potentially transferring virus particles to receipts handled afterwords. I have started just holding up my receipt for them to look at (through the plexi-glass) rather than passing it under the slot for them to handle.

My Costco doesn't touch the receipts at all, they tell people to hold them up and to keep moving.

 

[Notrealname]

Our local Costco also stopped checking receipts

 

[loves to dive]

Lysol or alcohol ruins the electromagnetic properties of the N95 respirator to make it work. I don't have an N95 but I have a few paper masks. There was a medical professional on TV last week stating that if you have to reuse your paper masks, one way to sanitize them is by "baking" them in the oven at 170 degrees for 30 minutes, which is what I've been doing and the mask holds up great.

Now, the N95 is trickier because of the respirator but I did find this:

The safest and easiest way to kill off the coronavirus is to put your N95’s in a food dehydrator for 30 minutes. Most can be set at 155F to 165F but most people don’t have one.
If you have an oven that can drop the temperature to 160F that would be ideal but very few exist. Most ovens won’t heat below 180F. You could preheat the oven to 180F. Wrap the N95 mask in aluminum foil place it in the center of an oven making sure it’s not near any heating elements and heat it for 30 minutes. The aluminum helps keep the mask clean and prevents hot spots inside. Aluminum foil is not mandatory but a good Idea as ovens are not clean environments. Some problems you could run into are getting the mask too hot and damaging or melting the rubber strap.

Thanks. It was just a little bit of luck that he actually had a N95 and wasn't really wearing for so much to keep him from catching it as to keep others safe if he has it. He would have worn the home made cloth one had he not found that. When the disposable ones arrive, he will probably do the baking thing with them. Since I don't go anywhere except to an empty office, I don't wear one so it's not an issue for me.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I'm all for doing whatever we're required to do, but I marvel that there still might be people who believe wearing a non-certified mask will protect them from breathing in the virus

I can't find it now, but thevother day I saw something about the percentages from wearing a mask. These numbers are what i remember, not accurate except the third one.

• If Person B a mask and Person A doesn't, and they're together, Person A's chance of getting COVID-19 is somwhere around 40%.
• If Person A wears a mask and Person B doesn't, Person A's chance of catching it is somewhere in the vicinity of 16%.
• When A and B both wear masks in each other's company, the chance of transmission drops to 5%.

Assumes, of course, one person has The Virus.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

My Costco doesn't touch the receipts at all, they tell people to hold them up and to keep moving.

Ours had tables set up, taped lines to denote where you should put the receipt down on the table and then they did the marker line. When we went I didn't see any of those people actually touching the receipts. This is of course just related to coronavirus as normally you do hand your receipt to them, they put the line through it and hand it back to you.

I haven't been since April 6th so it's possible they have changed using the tables.

 

[eileenjez]

We've been getting some snide comments from people not wearing masks. Surprisingly one was from a young mother pushing an infant in a shopping cart. What bothers me most is the adults wearing the masks but the children with them are not.

 

[SaintsManiac]

We've been getting some snide comments from people not wearing masks. Surprisingly one was from a young mother pushing an infant in a shopping cart. What bothers me most is the adults wearing the masks but the children with them are not.

Masks are not recommended for young kids. I think it's 2 and under.

 

[spiders]

I wear a mask to the grocery store. I don't wear one at work although I hear work is going to begin supplying them soon but won't be required. Honestly, there is no reason for any of us to be within 6 feet of us anymore unless we are specifically relieving that person for break so...

I don't know where you can find masks, at least locally anymore. We were down to our last few. I did find a box on Amazon but it wasn't cheap...$40 for 50 of the one time use masks. The only reason we had any to begin with was because I normally wore them when mowing the lawn just for the dust/pollen.

 

[rjb123]

I guess even bad use is better than none, right ? I will say though that the worst users are the ones with hospital grade masks! Like pulling them down and up etc. I actually saw a woman and her husband (in their 70's) who pulled their N95 masks down in the grocery store and proceed to open a bag of chips and share them in the check out line. Um, hello, STUPID! I just don't understand it- people with masks coming on up into my personal space- and I mean ON TOP of me, almost touching me- not even ok pre pandemic! People are odd! lol!

 

[Sakiki]

DW and I are both dreading it when masks are made compulsory in the UK (and it’s going to happen at some point). I suffer severe panic attacks when anything is put across my face (a very bad experience as a kid with an anaesthetic mask at the dentist) and I can’t even bear to wear a scarf in freezing weather, and DW is asthmatic and basically can’t breathe if her nose and mouth are covered. I’m desperately glad also that I’m close enough to retirement that if masks are made compulsory in workplaces that can’t arrange social distancing (and my employers can’t do that as we’re a small company with limited space for the desks) - and that’s another possibility being mooted - I can afford to quit. Unless I’m allowed to continue working from home when the office reopens, which I can do exactly the same as if I was in the office as we’re entirely paperless.

We may have to resign ourselves to getting groceries and prescriptions delivered and not going out at all until there is a vaccine.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

the person at Costco that checks your receipt on the way out. It is one or two people at the door, who now have a contact point with every single individual who purchased something in the store.

At our Sam's Club they don't touch/take the receipt. They have a mobile scanner to scan the bar code on the receipt and then they scan one of the items in your cart.

 

[MarkLT1]

Ours had tables set up, taped lines to denote where you should put the receipt down on the table and then they did the marker line. When we went I didn't see any of those people actually touching the receipts. This is of course just related to coronavirus as normally you do hand your receipt to them, they put the line through it and hand it back to you.

I haven't been since April 6th so it's possible they have changed using the tables.

Yesterday at our local Costco, they had tables set up, with the "plexi-glass cage" around the person checking receipts. There was a large notch cut out of the plexi at table level, and they were asking people to slide the receipt under. The person was then handling the receipt, counting items, then sliding the receipt back out. I simply held my receipt up to the plexi for them to see. It sounds like some Costcos (and Sam's club) are handling this a bit better. I'd recommend if your Costco is doing it like mine- just hold your receipt up to the plexi.

 

[ronandannette]

We've been getting some snide comments from people not wearing masks. Surprisingly one was from a young mother pushing an infant in a shopping cart. What bothers me most is the adults wearing the masks but the children with them are not.

It's apparently pretty hard for people to objectively apply standards to themselves v.s. others. And something that one sees as vital to health and safety can be low priority to another. I guess that's nothing new though.