 So I've heard these two arguments against wearing face coverings to prevent the spread of COVID-19 quite a bit lately, and I just wanted to share why, to me, they don't make any sense. But before you watch this video, I need you to promise me three things. One, you will not use this information that I'm sharing with you to judge anyone, call anyone stupid, or do or say anything hateful to anybody. There's already enough hate and division over this topic, and my intention is just to give you my opinion based on my basic scientific knowledge and the personal research that I've done. Two, you will not leave any hateful comments on this video because I'll block you immediately. And three, you need to understand that this video is for informational purposes only, this is not medical or professional advice of any kind, it's just simply my opinion based on my knowledge and my experience and the research that I have done. And four, you have to like this video, share this video and subscribe to my channel. Sorry, had to get that in there. And you'll notice that I'm looking this way, I'm not looking right at the camera because I made some notes and I just want to read the notes, I don't want to memorize everything. So anyway, that explanation aside, let's get into it. So the first argument I hear against wearing masks to protect against viral illnesses like COVID-19 is something along the lines of, a virus is 50,000 times smaller than a speck of dust and you really think a mask is going to stop it? Yeah, I do. Well, that's like throwing sand at a chain link fence and expecting the chain link fence to catch the sand. Right, but the mask isn't stopping the sand, it's stopping to throw. Huh? So the logic behind wearing a face covering, even a surgical mask or a bandana, not an N95 but just something simple, is not to try to stop every single viral particle that comes out of the infected person's mouth. It's actually to reduce the force with which those particles come out, or better yet, the tiny water droplets that they travel on. It's to reduce the force with which those water droplets leave your mouth and therefore the distance they travel and the surfaces they contaminate. Remember, viruses are not bacteria. They can only reproduce inside of a host cell, like one of my cells or one of your cells. So it's not like just a few viruses can come out of your mouth and land on a surface and start reproducing and then there's just a whole bunch of virus to infect the person who touches that surface. No, the only viral load, the only viruses that remain on that surface is the viral load, the viruses that come out of the person's mouth. No more and no less. Maybe a little bit less because some might degenerate, but definitely no more. So the less viral load, the less virus that actually comes out of you, the less ends up in the air, the less ends up on the surfaces and the fewer people around you have a chance to get infected. And now I know I just mentioned viral load, which is a very important concept here as well. Viral load is literally just how much virus comes out of you, how many viral particles, how many actual viruses you project out of your body if you're the infected person or how much actually comes into you that you come in contact with if you're the person being infected. And this matters because a very small number of viruses entering your body unless you're severely, severely immunocompromised like you have HIV-AIDS or you're on long-term immunosuppressants for an autoimmune condition, something like that, unless you're one of those folks, if you're a fairly healthy person, your body will very likely fight off that small amount of virus that's in you. But the more viral load there is, the harder it is for your immune system to do that job and to fight it off. Of course, I know there's tons of genetic factors and a million other factors that are coming into play here that I'm not mentioning, but just for the average, healthy person for the vast majority of people, a small amount of virus such as that coming from a person wearing a face covering is less likely to deliver enough viral load into you to make you sick than a person not wearing a face covering who would deliver more viral load onto surfaces into the atmosphere and into you. So the compound effect of everyone or at least most people wearing a face covering translates to less viral load in our stores, on our surfaces, and fewer sick people overall. And of course, an honorable mention here is those folks that are immunocompromised, they do have HIV, they are older, they're diabetic, they have other comorbidity that make their immune system not work as well as a healthy person or people on chronic immunosuppressants, on prednisone, on humera, things like that for autoimmune conditions. Those folks need to be protected because a small amount of viral load can actually get them sick. And those are the folks that are presenting to emergency departments and are actually really getting sick with COVID-19 as a whole. So you're not only protecting yourself with the face covering, you're doing your part to kind of protect everybody else, especially those folks that can get sick more easily. And just a totally subjective piece of evidence here is a primary care PA that I know very well keeps telling me that he's barely seen any cases of influenza this year. So influenza, you know, the flu is another viral illness that's similar but not the same as COVID-19. And he says he's prescribed much less Tamiflu, you know, the medicine you give to somebody if they have the flu less than 48 hours. And he's treated many fewer cases of the flu than he normally does, even though it's flu season. So what's been different this year? Well, most people, at least in the area that we live, most people are wearing face coverings to the stores when they get around people. There's been social distancing and that's prevented the spread of diseases like the flu and COVID-19, which actually leads me to the second argument I'd like to talk about that doesn't make any sense to me. And that's that COVID-19 and influenza, the flu are the same thing. I've actually heard licensed practicing physician assistants say stuff like this. They say a virus is a thousand times smaller or 50,000 times smaller than a piece of dust. And so when they look at it under an electron microscope, how in the world can you tell the difference between the flu and COVID-19? Well, my response to this is twofold. The first part is they don't actually use electron microscopes clinically to diagnose influenza or COVID-19. And two, the electron microscope actually can detect physical differences between viruses as you'll see by reading reference number three and you'll see the references that I used to research this video at the end of the video and also in the information for the video. So back to my first point, we don't actually use electron microscopes to diagnose COVID-19 or influenza. We use something called a PCR. No one is actually physically looking at a picture of the virus. They're doing a PCR, which is a polymerase chain reaction. That basically means that when you give your sample, they jam the Q-tip up your nose and tickle your brain or they swab the inside of your mouth. The lab isolates the genetic material. The RNA amplifies it, which means they just make a bunch of copies and then they compare it to a known genetic sequence for COVID-19 or influenza A or B or whatever test they're running. So DNA and RNA are genetic material that's used by every living thing, including a virus, which isn't technically a living thing, but that's a discussion for another day. So genetic material speaks a language. Each living thing and each virus has a unique sequence of nucleotides that identifies it and allows it to function and live in the way that it does. You have a unique sequence. I have a unique sequence. Your dog has a unique sequence. And COVID-19 has a unique sequence and they're all different. So when you take a COVID test, that's what's being done to your sample. And I know the tests aren't perfect. There's still false positives and false negatives and there's a long way to go before these tests actually get really good. But here I'm just saying that the electron microscope argument makes absolutely no sense. They don't even use that. They use a PCR. And just one more thing to add to that. If anybody's worked at an emergency room, actually diagnosed and treated COVID-19 patients, looked at their x-rays, studied their clinical signs and presenting symptoms, you know from your clinical experience that this disease, COVID-19, presents very differently from influenza, the common flu. They're both deadly, but they're very, very different. And yeah, influenza does kill a lot of people, but COVID-19 is something we're not very experienced in treating and because it acts differently, I'm not saying it's necessarily any worse than the common flu, but we don't know enough about it. So at this time, yes, it is worse. And here's my references. Alright, thank you for watching.