They could simply take used masks from patients - and take a smear from the inner side - after 2, 8 and 24 hours of use - and check the bacterial counts on that surface. Sure.
townhall.com
I've read about a number of these "informal" studies as well as high school science projects.
In addition, this is "journalistic" "News" and possibly biased one way or another.
I assume that peer reviewed studies are what you are talking about and a very quick search came up with a couple of journal publications right away that demonstrates that bacteria and fungi does collect in masks. I'm sure if I did a deeper search I could come up with more. These are the first two that came up. Perhaps you might see something different than what I say below.
This one was surgical masks (SM), worn by professionals who are more likely to wear and handle them properly (unlike the public who are more likely not to wear them properly, put their fingers all over them (who said that?), and wear them for too long, and use them multiple times)
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
J Orthop Translat 2018 Jun 27;14:57-62.
Surgical masks as source of bacterial contamination during operative procedures
Conclusions: The source of bacterial contamination in SMs was the body surface of the surgeons rather than the OR environment. Moreover, we recommend that surgeons should change the mask after each operation, especially those beyond 2 hours. Double-layered SMs or those with excellent filtration function may also be a better alternative.
The translational potential of this article: This study provides strong evidence for the identification that SMs as source of bacterial contamination during operative procedures, which should be a cause for alarm and attention in the prevention of surgical site infection in clinical practice.
.
.
.
*** and....One from a Nature pub :
nature.com
Sci Rep 12, 11361 (2022).
Bacterial and fungal isolation from face masks under the COVID-19 pandemic
Some excerpts:
...Although most identified bacteria were non-pathogenic, there were several potential pathogenic bacteria in humans as follow: S. aureus (commensal bacterium, but its overgrowth can cause various diseases); B. cereus(intestinal bacterium, causing food poisoning); Staphylococcus saprophyticus (urinary tract infection); and Pseudomonas luteola (opportunistic pathogen)...
[fungus]...Among them, more than 20% of the participants had the four fungal genera, namely Cladosporium, Fonsecaea, Mucor, and Trichophyton, in common on both sides of the masks. The latter three are potentially pathogenic in humans ...
...The colony counts of face masks were higher in bacteria than in fungi; the bacterial and fungal colony counts were higher on the face-side and outer-side, respectively. The longer duration of mask usage correlated with increases in the fungal colony counts but not the bacterial colony counts...
So nothing that we can absolutely conclude, at least in these randomly picked publications, that masks harbor and can cause or enhance the possibility of pneumonia, but after reading these one might consider these results to strengthen that hypothesis. Who knows - maybe the bacteriae that cause pneumonia find masks to be an abhorrent place to collect and reproduce...but it looks like a duck to me.
No quack.
I believe that was done, but If it jumps up sky high — then, the matter would warrant further investigation. Wouldn’t be all that hard to confirm - or rule out - such a likelihood. Dirt cheap too, as studies go.
Whether masks are _mandated_ or simply suggested by public health officials -
I'd say such studies are warranted!!!
Otherwise we are not much better than those that recommended killing black cats during the (real) plague.
And if the hypothesis proves correct, the analogy between masks and cats become almost indistinguishable as we are all aware of what happened when they killed the cats. |
