Does weaing a mask so often have downsides?

I'm not "anti-mask". I'm just wondering whether we will see studies in 10-20 years about a bunch of children with lung problems from restricted airflow or weird fibers or chemicals, or other pathogens that grew on the masks, or something we haven't thought of yet.

Or who knows? Maybe kids will all have super strong lungs. Or maybe lucky ones will have stronger lungs and others will suffer. I just don't know.

Anyone studying this (potential) issue?

Who knows. But we do have large parts of the world where wearing masks during cold season is normalized, without any massive evidence of adverse effect.

Having an entire population hiding their face on a routine basis when interacting with the public is an enormous downside. Completely unacceptable, and forcing it on the _entire_ population is downright evil.

Like the surgeons who have been dropping like flies for the past 100 years because they wear masks all day at work?

You could at least make an attempt to consider differences amd whether those differences might matter.

* Adult vs child

* Material (e.g. cotton)

* Quality

* Wash / replacement schedule

* Activities performed

And while you're at it, consider that kids aren't dropping like flies from covid, either. So if you're performing a cost / benefit analysis, the cost to kids wearing masks doesn't need to be very high before it gets higher than whatever benefit the masks offer.

> So if you're performing a cost / benefit analysis, the cost to kids wearing masks doesn't need to be very high before it gets higher than whatever benefit the masks offer.

Outright death is rare, but there's quite a few pediatric hospitalizations. They likely come with long term consequences, too.

For that matter, influenza has been greatly reduced, and there's a lot of chronic sequelae to influenza infection in youth.

And don't forget to add secondary consequences. I'm still willing to teach them in part because of reduced risk to me and my father thanks to masking. And a slightly reduced chance of killing a parent or grandparent by bringing home COVID is notable, too.

They get new masks every few hours. Or they did before the pandemic anyway.

That depends on how long they are in surgery, I'd think. And isn't the reason for switching masks not because of adverse affects to the surgeon, but to protect the patient? We have similar things with rubber gloves: You don't need to change gloves so often if you are, say, cleaning.

We had a scare like this here in Québec during April: https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/recalled-masks-were-worn-by-thou...

As far as I know, it was more of a fear than anything else. But it raises an important question: who controls the quality of the masks we wear? What's to stop a store from ordering substandard products and ordering all its employees to wear them?

The only issue I have seen so far is that constantly exhaling onto your eyes dries them out and can make them more prone to minor infections. Happened to me, doctor told me to not use contacts for a bit and take mask breaks once in a while. Outside of that, medical professionals wear masks all the time. Nurses are often subjects of medical studies because they are an accessible caprice audience. I know of no known cases of mask wearing being a bad thing.

Consider getting a mask that seals over the bridge over the nose. Bonus: this will also be much more effective at protecting you.

hmmm... thanks for that anecdote. i have been having dry eyes since last year... i thought it was age. But maybe I should try taking breaks when wearing masks.

Artificial tears are of great help as well.

I think the environmental damage is going to be a big issue in the near future, those hundreds of millions of plastic masks getting thrown away every day don't just dissolve into the aether; they stay around where they will pollute the environment especially the oceans. As far as I'm aware this topic hasn't been discussed at all by my government let alone a plan put in place to mitigate this environmental harm.