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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFrom The Telegraph. Face mask wearing may act as a sort of vaccine.
In that the mask increase the likelihood that a person will take in a low dose that activate the bodys immune response without the person getting sick.
Link:
https://apple.news/An9uNFDcwSTi7dD5kk9hCrg
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The article:
Global health
Snip:
Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggest
Face masks may be inadvertently giving people Covid-19 immunity and making them get less sick from the virus, academics have suggested in one of the most respected medical journals in the world.
Snip:
The commentary, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, advances the unproven but promising theory that universal face mask wearing might be helping to reduce the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic.
If this hypothesis is borne out, the academics argue, then universal mask-wearing could become a form of variolation (inoculation) that would generate immunity and thereby slow the spread of the virus in the United States and elsewhere as the world awaits a vaccine.
It comes as increasing evidence suggests that the amount of virus someone is exposed to at the start of infection - the infectious dose - may determine the severity of their illness. Indeed, a large study published in the Lancet last month found that viral load at diagnosis was an independent predictor of mortality in hospital patients.
Wearing masks could therefore reduce the infectious dose that the wearer is exposed to and, subsequently, the impact of the disease, as masks filter out some virus-containing droplets.
Snip:
If this theory bears out, researchers argue, then population-wide mask wearing might ensure that a higher proportion of Covid-19 infections are asymptomatic.
Better still, as data has emerged in recent weeks suggesting that there can be strong immune responses from even mild or asymptomatic coronavirus infection, researchers say that any public health strategy that helps reduce the severity of the virus - such as mask wearing - should increase population-wide immunity as well.
This is because even a low viral load can be enough to induce an immune response, which is effectively what a typical vaccine does.
Snip:
While this hypothesis needs to be backed up with more clinical study, experiments in hamsters have hinted at a connection between dose and disease. Earlier this year, a team of researchers in China found that hamsters housed behind a barrier made of surgical masks were less likely to get infected by the coronavirus. And those who did contract the virus became less sick than other animals without masks to protect them.

soothsayer
(38,601 posts)
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)PatSeg
(49,831 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Interesting article and I wanted to share it.
LizBeth
(11,023 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(15,118 posts)... initial viral load generally resulting in less severe symptoms.
Maybe I'm going too far with my N100-rated mask, multi-layered cloth mask (to cover the exhalation valve) and face shield? Lol.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(15,118 posts)They're a tight fit with the Trend Stealth mask.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)But I guess that depends upon your underlying health. People at higher risk maybe should not take chances.
Thekaspervote
(35,177 posts)Blue_true
(31,261 posts)mucifer
(25,008 posts)Buckeye_Democrat
(15,118 posts)... as often as someone with an infected person in their home. That's how MOST people get infected, per contact tracing -- from inside their home after someone else in the home gets infected elsewhere.
And per a survey of about 600,000 people by AncestryDNA...
https://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2020/06/26/a-community-united-with-science-update-on-ancestrys-covid-19-study/amp/
Healthcare workers with direct exposure are ~6 times more likely to have a confirmed case of COVID-19 as compared to our overall survey population
People with a household member with COVID are ~121 times more likely to have a confirmed case of COVID-19 as compared to our overall survey population
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)Is it possible the health care professionals were wearing N95 masks at work and being less careful in their personal lives and got a big dose without a mask on? Here in Florida I regularly see Nurses in their scrubs with no mask on in public.
marble falls
(62,968 posts)LisaM
(28,940 posts)I knew it!
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)If the findings on masks are right, that would be a way to develop immunity without vaccines for some people.
RockRaven
(16,797 posts)We can deduce that the proper way for antivaxxers to avoid getting those scary shots (BillGates/microchips/globalist/sterilizing/newworldorder/autism/yaddayadda) but also safely and "naturally" avoiding dangerous coronavirus infections is for them to put on a mask, shove their face into the ass of a covid patient, and sniff their farts... No?
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)
cwydro
(51,308 posts)I went out very very rarely, but became ill at the beginning of August.
I was miserably sick, but according to my doctor - it was a "mild" case, so I like to think the mask helped.
No idea how I was exposed. Fever up to 104 for three days in a row, but I rode it out at home.
It's a horrible virus; I'd never want to experience that again.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)I took my cue from what people in South Korea, Japan and China were doing. So, I have been wearing a mask when in public for around 7 months. I went grocery shopping and took trips to the hardware store regularly during that time, but never went to a sit down restaurant and only once stood in a takeout place for more than 5 minutes. I had extremely (like never) headaches in February before I went to the mask, but cant say what caused them. I have never been tested, if I have gotten infected with COVID19, it was majorly mild. I tended to avoid maskholes when I was out shopping, fortunately 98%+ of the people I come across now are wearing masks.
Blue_true
(31,261 posts)I took my cue from what people in South Korea, Japan and China were doing. So, I have been wearing a mask when in public for around 7 months. I went grocery shopping and took trips to the hardware store regularly during that time, but never went to a sit down restaurant and only once stood in a takeout place for more than 5 minutes. I had extremely (like never) headaches in February before I went to the mask, but cant say what caused them. I have never been tested, if I have gotten infected with COVID19, it was majorly mild. I tended to avoid maskholes when I was out shopping, fortunately 98%+ of the people I come across now are wearing masks.