@Iwokeup @GIlman thanks for doing this – really hope it doesn't get derailed like the last thread.
I have a few questions:
1 – How effective are masks in an outdoor environment? Lots of places in the USA are mandating mask wearing EVERYWHERE. My understanding of it was the risk of contracting COVID in an outdoor, "fresh air" environment (esp. with wind) was effectively null. i.e. You're not gonna kill an old lady by walking by her without a mask...I look at it as hysteria, wanna get the scientific answer.
2 – What % likelihood is it that I had COVID but displayed zero symptoms? 23, Healthy, Not overweight, no underlying conditions, workout daily...I've taken virtually zero precautions. *might* have had a low grade fever for like 2 days in march but that's it.
3 – What do you take / supplement to give your immune system a boost, as a precaution?
Thanks!
Honestly, no one can actually answer those questions with certainty, there is a lot of speculation. Here are my thoughts about it though.
1) Masks would be as effective outdoors as indoors from a filtration standpoint, but I'm guessing the real question you are getting at is not the effectiveness but the utility of masks outdoors. If masks actually provide any protection (which I personally am highly skeptical of simply because people seem to lack good "mask hygiene" and touch them constantly), then you would expect that they would provide similar protection from any Covid that actually reached your face. However, the benefit of being outdoors is two fold, that probably makes the utility of masks quite low to begin with.
First, is the volume and rate of dispersion. Meaning that when you are outside there is an infinite volume of air to dilute any covid particles into. As opposed to indoors where you have a fixed amount of air between the walls, floor, and ceiling; outside the particles will diffuse 360 degrees into infinity. Any air currents will speed up the rate of dissipation. Note that just because you are exposed to covid, does not necessarily mean that you will become infected. Your body has several mechanisms to protect itself against any inhaled agent. The higher the dose of exposure the more likely you will become infected. This is probably why, ironically, it seems that people who shelter in place get infected more often (and possibly suffer more severe illness).
Actually this was first reported in china before it even blew up here in the US, namely that interfamily infections resulted in higher death rates than infections acquired in the community. Makes sense really because if you are trapped in the same house as someone that is sick, your exposure would be off the charts compared to say getting it from someone on the subway that is only in direct exposure to you for 10 minutes.
Second, outdoors, during the daytime at least, you have lots of UV light, which is believed to neutralize and kill covid nearly instantaneously. So if you are in direct sunlight, well then probably there is very very very low chance of covid surviving from someone else's mouth to yours.
So, in my opinion masks out doors in most situations are more theater than protection, well maybe indoors too as I said above. Of course if you are in a tightly packed crowd then the dynamics of everything I just said does change some, especially if at night (assuming that masks did have utility, which again I am very skeptical of).
Why am I skeptical, I guess I will state that too. There have been several studies done with Flu, which is similar in many ways to covid, where they divided people into groups where they wore different styles of masks or no masks at all. These were people working in medical offices. They found no statistical difference in these groups. And these medical personal have some knowledge and experience with proper mask hygiene, which the general public does not. One the CDC site they link to studies about filtration efficiency to different particles, but even the studies they cite showed poor filtration. But the flu study is probably more applicable because it takes into account all the variables of people wearing masks in the real world in addition to filtration efficiency.
2) That's impossible to say, that totally depends on the prevalence of the infection in the population at large. If you live in a place like NYC or Boston where there were big outbreaks, then there is a significant chance. If you live in boonies Vermont, probably really low. Serum antibody tests in different locations show the rate of subclinical (no symptoms) infection that has occured.
3) The ones that i believe probably have some protective impact for catching and severity of illness are Zinc and Vitamin D. There is a plausible mechanism and some data to support both. Beyond that I don't know.
