CNBC Touts TRIPLE-Masking For Best Protection Against COVID-19

 

Remember when twin razor blades came out? The first blade, we were told in ads, pulled the hair out a bit and the second blade lopped it off, giving you a closer shave.

Then there were three blades. Then four. Now there are even five-blade razors. More is always better.That’s what’s happening with masks. After all the supposed top brains, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, told us as the COVID-19 pandemic was just hitting the U.S. that we didn’t need to wear them. Then they said,”Wear one.” Then Fauci, America’s top immunologist, suggested that maybe two is better than one. And now, CNBC says, hey, if two is better than one, then three is better than two, right?

On a CNBC program hosted by former Fox News host Shep Smith, former CBS/MSNBC/NBC correspondent and host Contessa Brewer said three is better than two, citing “experts.”

“So yeah, the experts keep telling us that wearing masks is really about protecting ourselves, protecting others from ourselves in the event that we are contagious. But you know if other people aren’t wearing their masks or they’re wearing them improperly, we need to protect ourselves. So experts say you can double up with a tight weave fabric mask for added protection,” Brewer said.

“Now, Virginia Tech researchers found that doubling up these cloth masks increases the efficacy from 50% to 75%. A three-layer mask could block up to 90% of the particles.” A graphic accompanying the declaration used the word “efficiency” instead of “efficacy.”

Wags on social media had a field day. “We’ve lost our ever-lovin’ minds,” wrote one person on Twitter, adding, “I thought it was a parody. Nope… it’s real.”

Virginia Kruta, associate editor at The Daily Caller, rounded it all up in one succinct tweet. “Masks don’t work don’t buy them. Ok masks work but first responders need them so don’t buy them. Actually masks work, you should use them. Everyone should mandate masks. Masks should even be worn in your home. Two masks are better than one. No one saw this coming?”

She’s spot on.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who served on President Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force and is now President Biden’s chief medical adviser on COVID-19, now says wearing two masks is likely more effective than wearing one.

“If you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on it; just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective,” Fauci told NBC News on Monday.

Back in March, Fauci said “there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.”

“When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is,” the doctor said on CBS News.

But the response to the virus has been evolving since then. Soon after Fauci made his comments, experts — including the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — said Americans should wear masks, citing estimates that 40% or more of those infected were asymptomatic but could still spread the virus.

The New York Times said earlier this month that if one mask works, maybe two will be twice as nice.

“Football coaches do it. President-elects do it. Even science-savvy senators do it. As cases of the coronavirus continue to surge on a global scale, some of the nation’s most prominent people have begun to double up on masks — a move that researchers say is increasingly being backed up by data,” the paper wrote.

The Times cites Linsey Marr, an expert in virus transmission at Virginia Tech, who said “if you combine multiple layers, you start achieving pretty high efficiencies” of blocking viruses from exiting, and even entering, the nose or mouth.

Of course, there’s a drawback: “We run the risk of making it too hard to breathe.”

Well, don’t let that stop you. More is always better.