Mask Cost Benefit Analysis

Are the Mask Pros Worth the Cons?

12/8/2021

While I have never enjoyed wearing the masks, I have been blessed to have never worn them for an extended period of time during this pandemic.  The only annoyance they caused me was forgetting to grab one when I had to attend a situation that required them.  The longest I’ve had to wear a mask was during my four Florida flights.  Even then, I was able to nurse my beverage to shorten my time covered up.  I felt like that if wearing a mask helped make a germaphobe feel better, then fine be me.  I never felt the need to fight the mask, I could always take it off.

I still don’t really feel the need to discuss masks. They are not nearly the concern that these vaccines are. I don’t believe there are any real long term effects. There might be some psychological effects on the children, but they will forget about them in some years if this mask madness is ever dropped.

I have seen kids at wrestling practice with masks on, yes wrestling the sport, while wearing masks. I have seen at least three kids throw up at practice. I have never witnessed this in young kids across my 30 plus years in the sport of wrestling. I started to look at studies to see what could be up with the health effects on mask wearing, and I found many. I settled on a few for this article.

PROS

Let’s start with the possible pros of mask wearing. The pros would be a stop in transmission of the virus from person to person. Let’s see if this is true. I combed through the studies on transmission in schools and found the three below. There is also an Israeli peer reviewed study showing an outbreak at a hospital where most of the transmission was between people both wearing N95 masks. Discussion of that study was not included because this article is really about masking children.

First study was a Danish study that was done early in the pandemic. Control group, no masks (2,994), study group wore masks (3,030). During three months, they checked to see Covid positive rates. Mask group was 1.8% positive after three months and unmasked group was 2.1% positive after three months. It was a crude study and depending on what side you are on, you get two different mathematically correct take-aways. One possible conclusion, “Masks give you a 0.3% less absolute chance of getting Covid over a three month period”. The other possible conclusion, “Masks have a relative effective rate of 17% over a three month period”.

Second study compared district polices to school Covid rates in Georgia. This compared more than just masks, but I will concentrate on the mask data. The bottom line on this study was that districts with mask mandates had 2.44 Cases per 500 students, and districts that were optional had 3.81 Cases per 500 students during the study period. This means a mask mandate saved a school with 500 students 1.5 Covid cases. With the extremely low death rate of Covid in children, that saves a number of lives so small, we can’t compute it.

The last study was done by the University of Michigan and there is a chart that makes it look like masks are extremely effective. This is that chart

Let’s look at 9/15/2021, that is the day that the cases appear to level off. Schools with few mask rules have 78 cases per 100,000 and the masks required is at about 45 cases per 100,000. This means that in a maskless school of 500 the school would have 0.39 new cases per day compared to the masked up school would have 0.22 new cases per day. With 180 days in the school year, this is an extra 30 cases in the unmasked school per year vs. the masked up school.

Cons

Now let’s see the potential health problems with our kids or even some employees wearing masks. When we breathe out, we exhale CO2 (Carbon Dioxide), it is a byproduct of humans turning food into energy, just like combustion. Our process is more complicated than combustion. Our lungs exchange CO2 for O2 (oxygen) when we breath. Fresh air contains approximately 400ppm CO2. When we wear a mask the CO2 does not dissipate from our face as readily. This chart below is from a study on CO2 concentrations at our face with a mask on.

Look how the concentration of CO2 in our masks increases as we expend more energy and in turn expel more CO2. This study was done on adults, children typically have higher respiratory rates than adults. This means children’s CO2 concentrations would likely be higher.

Another study done on adults showed similar results, but they said do not be worried as the increased CO2 levels are not a problem.

ASHRAE sets standards for building HVAC systems and they set temperature, humidity, fresh air, CO2 concentration, efficiency, and other standards to ensure buildings are safe and comfortable for occupants. The ASHRAE Standard for ambient indoor air in occupied spaces has changed over the years but in general they recommend between 800-1,000 ppm.

According to Occupational Heath & Safety Magazine, CO2 has these effects at these levels.

• 250-350 ppm: background (normal) outdoor air level

• 350-1,000 ppm: typical level found in occupied spaces with good air exchange

• 1,000-2,000 ppm: level associated with complaints of drowsiness and poor air

• 2,000-5,000 ppm: level associated with headaches, sleepiness, and stagnant, stale, stuffy air; poor concentration, loss of attention, increased heart rate and slight nausea may also be present

• >5,000 ppm: This indicates unusual air conditions where high levels of other gases also could be present. Toxicity or oxygen deprivation could occur. This is the permissible exposure limit for daily workplace exposures.

• >40,000 ppm: This level is immediately harmful due to oxygen deprivation.

Masks put us in the 2,000 to 3,500 range for adults, probably higher in children, especially while exercising at higher intensity. I wonder if teachers are seeing some of these effects in the classroom.

In summary, you can see if these Pros outweigh the Cons for yourself and make your personal determination. We don’t know if children are seeing CO2 levels higher than the adults in the studies, but it is likely. Masking a child that is performing high intensity exercise cannot be recommended ever and even wearing a mask for a long school day should be reconsidered. We should at least perform a study on CO2 levels in children with masks on. We should at least give the kids as many mask breaks as possible. I don’t understand why we have the mask mandate when we are saving 30 cases a year for a 500 kid school. Maybe we give them table cloths for their desks, because we know that sitting at a restaurant, masks aren’t needed while you are sitting.