Sorry that I have been quite the past few days. Mathking (thank you) sent me a link to some information on masks and I have been studiously going through those links and many, many more. Also followed along on the social distancing data. I want to share the results from that work. You can do whatever you want with the information. I am responsible for several dozen kids and want to protect them.
Start with this summary from the New England Journal of Medicine on the topic of mask use vs Covid-19: “wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection. Public health authorities define a significant exposure to covid 19 as face-to-face contact within 6 feet with a symptomatic Covid-19 that is sustained for at least a few minutes (some say more than 10 minutes and others even 20 minutes. The chance of catching Covid-19 from a passing interaction in a public space is therefore minimal. In many cases, the desire for widespread making is a reflexive reaction to anxiety over the pandemic.” April 1, 2020.
This advice was updated in the July 9, 2020 issue as follow:” We did state in the article that “wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection,” but as the rest of the paragraph makes clear, we intended this statement to apply to passing encounters in public spaces, not sustained interactions within closed environments. A growing body of research shows that the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission is strongly correlated with the duration and intensity of contact: the risk of transmission among household members can be as high as 40%, whereas the risk of transmission from less intense and less sustained encounters is below 5%.
5-7 This finding is also borne out by recent research associating mask wearing with less transmission of SARS-CoV-2, particularly in closed settings.
8 We therefore strongly support the calls of public health agencies for all people to wear masks when circumstances compel them to be within 6 ft of others for sustained periods.”
So the first question I had was, what is a closed environment? The vast majority of the historical articles reference hospital type of situations. Another would be, for example, a train car (i.e. Japanese wearing the face masks). In any event, it is inside where people are very close together. The articles mentioned within 3 feet for distancing, not 6 feet. So for 3 feet, in sustained contact (the 10-20 minute range, imagine standing side by side in a full train car) the chances of transmission are somewhere between 9% to 20%. The data showed significant differences in transmission rates between covid and influenza (covid is much higher). Outside, the risk is essentially zero. So for XC, the risk is very, very low. The kids cannot share drinks…the bus ride should be with windows down and at most single seat.
What about school? The risk to kids is very low, they just don’t seem to transfer it to other people (which is interesting in itself). So the teachers would be the concern. What to do? The teachers will need to wear the throw away “surgeon” masks and keep the kids at least 6 feet away. If they do that they will be fine. The cloth masks are almost useless. If you really care, then you will need to wear surgeon masks.
There is more I can share if you have questions. I will leave the politics out of it for this type of discussion.