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new-kirishitan
Guest
Japanese people wear mask mainly for 3 reason:
Now, a regular surgical mask is not far from being sufficient to protect you from the coronavirus. A study was done in Hong Kong and it concluded that wearing a regular mask reduces your chance of infection by only about 10%. This might not seem big impressive at all, but when you look at the big picture of an infection that grows exponentially, 10% can slow down the spread of infection significantly. And that can buy us quite some time to create a vaccine, or to wait for the virus to attenuate.
And talking about attenuation, I noticed there are indeed signs of that too. When the pandemic first broke out in Wuhan, the virus was killing people indiscriminately, both old and young. Lots of families were completely wiped out, the hospitals were filled with dead bodies everywhere. The crematoriums were overloaded, and incinerators for medical waste were brought in to cremate the bodies. There were some really disturbing video footages such as a young woman’s body was thrown out through a window, and three dead children were packed into one bodybag for cremation (cremation is mandated in China). Also, a lot of deaths at the time were sudden deaths, where people walking on the street just fall and die all of a sudden, which is something we don’t really see now.
Three kids packed into one bodybag for cremation
Sudden deaths and hospitals filled with dead bodies
Lots of sudden deaths from the coronavirus, notice the protection gear the medical staff wears
So even though the virus appears to be attenuated already, we still need to be careful, as the virus still might get deadly again, because you don’t ever know what type of mutation is happening.
- To reduce the chance of getting respiratory infection, especially during flu season.
- To reduce the effect of pollen allergy, because lots of people here are allergic to pollen, especially in spring. Some masks are designed to turn pollen into water, but it’s REALLY expensive.
- To distance themselves from others. Some people who aren’t very confident about how they look, so they use the mask to cover their faces, believing this can make others less likely to talk to them. Although its effectiveness is questionable.
Now, a regular surgical mask is not far from being sufficient to protect you from the coronavirus. A study was done in Hong Kong and it concluded that wearing a regular mask reduces your chance of infection by only about 10%. This might not seem big impressive at all, but when you look at the big picture of an infection that grows exponentially, 10% can slow down the spread of infection significantly. And that can buy us quite some time to create a vaccine, or to wait for the virus to attenuate.
And talking about attenuation, I noticed there are indeed signs of that too. When the pandemic first broke out in Wuhan, the virus was killing people indiscriminately, both old and young. Lots of families were completely wiped out, the hospitals were filled with dead bodies everywhere. The crematoriums were overloaded, and incinerators for medical waste were brought in to cremate the bodies. There were some really disturbing video footages such as a young woman’s body was thrown out through a window, and three dead children were packed into one bodybag for cremation (cremation is mandated in China). Also, a lot of deaths at the time were sudden deaths, where people walking on the street just fall and die all of a sudden, which is something we don’t really see now.
Three kids packed into one bodybag for cremation
Sudden deaths and hospitals filled with dead bodies
Lots of sudden deaths from the coronavirus, notice the protection gear the medical staff wears
So even though the virus appears to be attenuated already, we still need to be careful, as the virus still might get deadly again, because you don’t ever know what type of mutation is happening.
