Letter to the editor: Effectiveness of cloth masks

Coronavirus particles are spheres with diameters of approximately 0.125 microns. The smallest are about 0.06 microns and the largest are 0.14 microns. Tobacco smoke as it comes from a cigarette is a concentrated aerosol with a size distribution ranging from 0.1 to 1.0 microns, peaking between 0.2 and 0.25 microns. Thus, tobacco smoke particles, on average, are larger than coronavirus particles.

For those of you who smoke, inhale, put on your cloth mask and exhale. For those of you who do not smoke, ask a friend of yours if you can observe them when they perform this experiment.

Now ask yourself, if the cloth mask is ineffective at preventing the exhalation of smoke particles, which are twice the size of coronavirus particles, are they effective from preventing the inhalation of coronavirus particles?

Some of you may say that the virus particles attach themselves to droplets of moisture when someone who is infected exhales, coughs or sneezes, and that cloth masks are effective against droplets. OK, so you are wearing a mask and as you inhale, any droplets are trapped in the mask. But as the droplets evaporate, are you inhaling a concentration of virus particles? And if you already have the coronavirus, you are exhaling contaminated droplets into the mask, where they evaporate, allowing you to re-inhale the virus particles.

I do not feel that the common cloth mask serves any medical purpose.

George Silowash

Penn Township, Westmoreland County