Doctor wears six face masks to debunk oxygen deprivation myth
COVID-19
Posted 3 years ago by boyt in category: interesting

Comments (10)
If you are not breathing adequately the first thing that happens is CO2 levels rise which is what makes you feel short of breath. Meanwhile, there is enough oxygen dissolved in your blood and stored in your lungs to maintain oxygen saturations in the normal range. Which is fortunate, or people would pass out under water all the time due to low oxygen. But in fact, people do not routinely pass out under water because rising CO2 levels compel them to stop what they are doing and take a breath. That is why hyperventilating before free diving is so dangerous--you blow off a lot of CO2 and then CO2 levels may indeed not rise to the point that you feel the need to breathe until oxygen falls. Low oxygen leads to euphoria and confusion and then loss of consciousness and then you die. All of which is to say, if the masks were interfering with your breathing, the first thing that would happen is you would feel short of breath due to rising CO2 levels and you would rip off the masks. Meanwhile, your oxygen saturation might drop a bit, but not enough to cause you any harm. And finally, the job of the type of masks most people are wearing for protection from COVID19 is not to stop virus particles. It is to stop droplets that contain virus particles before someone else can inhale those droplets. Those droplets are way bigger than an individual virus particle and are effectively stopped by these masks. Is mask wearing definitely the right strategy? Maybe or maybe not. But it is such a simple thing to do and the possible benefit of slowing the spread of COVID19 so as not to overwhelm healthcare resources and needing to bring our economy to a halt again seems so totally worth the tiny inconvenience of wearing a mask when around other people.

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Idiot (guest) - 3 years ago
   

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