Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/1Ox1wde3AIU   From the “Yes….face masks really do make a difference ..department” comes a cut and dry engineering study that shows face masks reduce the distance an infectious aerosol travels by more than 50%.  Mechanical engineers at the University of Central Florida exhaustively studied 14 20-something participants to determine the effectiveness of various mask types on aerosol dispersal after speaking and coughing.   Measurements were made of droplet size, velocity, and spread as participants wore cloth masks, 3 layer surgical masks, or no mask.  The surgical mask limited the aerosol spread to 6 inches compared with at least 2 feet for the cloth mask and at least 4 feet for no mask.  Other studies have shown, though, that clouds of superfine aerosol are able to travel even further.   Now that we are dealing with the highly contagious Omicron variant, mask wearing is a must.  To avoid inhaling enough CoVid to make you ill, always wear the best mask you can indoors, that is a tig