CoronaVirus FAQ

Hello! So at the moment all the videos I've been doing on the coronavirus are ridiculously popular, you know, and everybody's searching them out and YouTube's recommending them. So because I'm getting so many comments I thought I'd do an FAQ video, so Frequently Asked Questions, on things I've been getting in the comments or I've seen people put online that I can answer myself. So what I'm going to do now is just take the gas mask off because I'm sure you'd rather hear me not speak with that on so it's easier to understand what I'm saying. That's a Finnish M71 for anybody wondering, very good mask. So the most common question I get is does X and then when with X, you know, any sort of gas mask, you know, does X gas mask work against coronavirus? Right, so all I can say is because it's basically unless you give me a model of mask, you know, like most people are doing and then saying does it work, it's mostly down to filters, right, as I've been saying, filters. What you need is good filters. So saying does X gas mask work only if you have the right filters on it and this is assuming the mask is in a good, you know, usable condition. If you've got a mask that's beaten up, the valves are falling apart, no it won't work. But remember, the important thing is getting P3 or P100 rated filters. They're the best filters you can actually get for filtering particles. Now this brings us onto the next question where lots of people say but aren't the microns of the virus smaller than what these particle filters stop? Yes they are. So you're then probably thinking why am I recommending these masks because they'd be useless. No, basically the thing is with the virus particles is they don't magically float around in the air and home in on you, you know, it's not like it's some sort of deadly chemical weapon. How they work is if people sneeze and cough, you know, or even talking to a degree, the spit or when they talk and all that is flowing out and, you know, the virus particles are on that and that's how they spread. So if you've just got, you know, somebody coughing on public transport and you had a mask on, unless they're coughing directly into your face, there's no way for those virus particles to actually get into the mask. So that's where the filter does its job and basically everything that the virus piggybacks on is much bigger in size particle-wise than, you know, the holes in the particle filters. So that regard, yes. So people are saying would, you know, like a P1 rated filter which is N95 work or would P2 work? Personally I always advise P3 for basically anything because P3 is just a better level of protection. It seems silly to me if you can easily get all three and, you know, each more protective step is only slightly more expensive than why you would ever bother with P1 because, for example, in the UK quite often if you're looking at like, say, disposable dust masks, even ones that are pretty much made with the same sort of elastic bands on and like little nose clips and all that, if companies do the different choices of them, P1 ones are normally like, let's say, three pounds each or something if you're buying them in a multi-pack. P2 is like four pounds, P3 is like five pounds. So yes, they are more expensive but if you figure just how much more of a protection factor you get with the P3 as compared to the P1, you know, very good. So that's that point. People saying can you trust the official Chinese numbers? Probably not, it's probably worse than they're saying. To what degree, I don't know. I don't know if it's just slightly worse than they're saying or is it really really bad because what I get the impression of a few people have said is it's a bit like the Chernobyl situation, you know, if you've watched the TV series recently you'll know what I'm on about, but when the, you know, when the plant blew up how all the management at the plant were just going into complete denial mode that basically anything bad that was happening was saying it's, you know, only a really really minimal problem even when it was the world's worst nuclear accident. So I think what you're seeing at the moment is kind of maybe the Chinese equivalent of that, but obviously not with nuclear power, thank God, but you know, where you've got basically the people initially there didn't want to get into trouble or wanted to seem good so were saying it wasn't very serious and now the saw it out. So that's my feeling on that. How worried should people be? Depends completely where you live and how good the medical services are, you know, services are in your country I would say. In the UK I'm not really worried at all at the moment, I'm doing videos on it because lots of people are interested in this and I'm interested in it, but the important thing to know is unless it starts mutating and getting a lot more dangerous currently, it's one of those cases I think if you're in a local area where it is you ought to be worried and follow good precautions. If you live somewhere like, you know, in a western country and there's good medical services I personally wouldn't be very worried, you know, follow good hygiene rules which is always essential, you know, wash your hands properly and things like that, but otherwise, you know, the point is that, you know, there's worrying about it to a certain degree is probably going to do you more harm than good. So another thing is, you know, is there a cure for it and stuff like that, I get a lot of things like that. No cure at the moment, basically if you've got it and they know you've got it, what they do is they put you in hospital, put you in isolation so you can't infect other people and then treat any sort of symptoms you might get, you know, so if you have difficulty breathing they'll put you on like a ventilator and all stuff like that, you know. So the point is that you have to get through it with your body's own sort of strength, if you're in hospital you have the best possible chance of doing that without it killing you. So there's no vaccine at the moment, whether or not one will be created who knows, people are saying do antibiotics work, no because it's a virus not bacteria, if you take antibiotics you're just weakening your immune system and, you know, that's another big danger at the moment which might be a big doomsday kind of play in the future, is antibiotic resistant bacteria because people are so fond now of taking antibiotics whenever they get something very minor that when something really nasty comes along the antibiotics won't work. This is a virus not bacteria so antibiotics don't do anything. How does it spread? We know it spreads definitely through the respiratory system, as in people coughing and sneezing and things like that. Initially they think the first person caught it from either a bat or a snake or something at some sort of live food market, whereas in it was like a respiratory thing passed on from one of those animals to a human. Apparently eating contaminated stuff won't harm you because your stomach acid destroys it, according to doctors, but if you're breathing near infected animals that was initially, you know, what caused it. Now it's going from person to person and it's definitely airborne it seems at this stage or at least, you know, waterborne in the sense of if you cough and sneeze everywhere it spreads it. But the big question I keep getting asked and people arguing either way on it, and I really don't know the answer to this because I'm not a doctor, is does it spread through the eyes? So if it does, if you have a panoramic full face gas mask, respirator or any sort of respirator that covers your eyes you're fine. If you have a half face mask or a dust mask on that makes a good face seal, because remember the important thing with dust masks is that they make a good face seal because a lot don't, that's why I always recommend half face mask over dust mask, but if you've got one of those on put goggles or something on top, problem solved. Will it get into your body via the eyes? There's a lot of argument about this at the moment, who knows, maybe it can get through the tear ducts, maybe it can't. I'm not a biologist, I'm not a doctor, I can't tell you yes or no. People are reporting that it can, other people are saying that's bullshit, I don't know. So if you want to cover all bases, you know, this is the way to do it. Do you need an NBC suit? Not by any means, from what I understand from what I've read it can't get in via the skin or anything like that, so it's not like where, you know, there's some diseases that can get in via skin contact or stuff like nerve agent that gets in via the skin and kills you. So yeah, you don't need a NBC suit on or anything like that, you just simply need a mask on if you're out in public. You know, in a place you think there's an infection, there's no point wearing a mask around like this somewhere completely where the virus isn't. The worrying thing is there's apparently like a two-week incubation period when you can spread it, but other people won't necessarily, you know, you can spread it to other people but you won't show symptoms, which is worrying because it means people could be, you know, just coughing or sneezing every now and then or breathing in a very close space to you, say if they're sitting next to you on a bus or something like that, and they could infect you that way but they wouldn't even know yet that they've got symptoms. So that is a worrying thing, but again that's not unique to this. So at the moment, if you look at mortality rates of it and everything like that, it seems like a flu strain that's just sort of spreading out of nowhere. If the mortality rate goes up then it could be bad at the moment, it's about three to four percent. So yeah, that could potentially be bad, but as I said I'm not too worried about that at the moment. I'm just trying to think if there's any other points, but the main points are when people keep asking about filters, the best thing is P3 or P100 rated filters, as in, you know, the best particulate filters you can get, and they're not expensive either. Oh, that does bring me on to a point I've seen a lot of bullshit comments where people are saying the problem is this gets too expensive, these filters, because if you buy one of these filters, you know, like for the five dollars, five dollars to pounds, you know, to like ten dollars or pounds, they're in that sort of price range. If you get those, the issue is that the filter is going to expire as soon as you take it outside and use it, so you're going to be going through multiple filters these days. Unless you're using it in a really smoggy, smoky environment, these filters last ages and ages and ages. It's not like a charcoal filter where once you open it and it's being exposed to vapors, even if they're ones that don't harm you, it's slowly sort of, you know, saturating the charcoal and using it up. With particulate filters, they just very slowly clog over time from like dust and, you know, stuff like that getting in them. A particle filter only stops being practical when you struggle to breathe through it anymore, or obviously if it gets damaged. So if you're using it in a very smoggy, horrible place, so maybe in Beijing or somewhere, you know, the filter might need replacing a lot more often, but in most places, no. If you've just been outside, the filter isn't going to be clogged and useless by the time you get back in. The virus also only lives about two days, apparently, on surfaces, so people have said, oh, I've got goods coming from China, is that dangerous? No, because I imagine in nearly every place in the world, even if somebody with coronavirus sneezed onto the actual packet, like, you know, your parcel, by the time it reaches you two weeks later or whatever in the postal system, wherever you live in the world, you know, that virus is long dead, so you don't have to worry about that. Yeah, I think that covers most of the points I've seen. For people who've said, just because this is worth mentioning, they say they live in a country where you can't easily buy gas masks or respirators, what can you get? Well, firstly, do you have hardware stores and that kind of thing? If you do, you might be able to get free mHalfFace masks. A lot of people don't seem to consider hardware stores for some reason, like, you know, in the UK we've got like B&Q, Screwfix and all those. If you go to those, you will actually find respirators, like, not military grade ones obviously, but you will find HalfFace respirators and some from FaceRespirators. And even then, let's say you're in a situation where you can't even get those, if you're in some countries, I'm sure you can get dust masks. Now, as much as I don't like dust masks for reasons I've gone over over and over and over and over again on this channel, because they don't make a very good face seal, if that's the best thing you can get, that's the best thing you can get. And if you buy a decent brand of dust mask, quite often they kind of put an elastic-y thing around the outside so it does stick tighter to your face and, you know, then therefore make a better face seal. Oh, and no, surgical masks do not protect you. A doctor was saying that the only good thing about a surgical mask is it stops you rubbing your mouth as frequently. That's another thing, you know, sanitise your hands a lot. Be very disciplined of what you do with your hands if you're out in public, you know, don't scratch your eyes, don't put your hands like there, because that makes it much easier for the virus to get into your system if your hands are contaminated. But yeah, you know, that's the main point that surgical masks, he was saying, you know, stop you doing that as easily. So that does help you out, but he was saying that surgical masks, yeah, are completely useless at stopping, you know, stuff getting into your respiratory system. I've seen some comments where people seem to completely unironically think if you turn a surgical mask inside out then it protects you. No, the whole point of surgical masks is it stops you coughing on other people. How surgical masks actually work is it's basically waterproof material, and then the air gets in through the sides. They're designed like that, so turning it inside out won't make a difference. If you had a surgical mask that was completely tight to the face and it was a waterproof one, you'd suffocate. Basically, the point of them is that air gets in through the sides, so your breathing normally is just your spittle won't fly on other people. So yeah, turning them inside out won't help. The point is of actual respirators is they make a tight fit to the face, and then all the air has to pass in and out through a filter, or in through a filter and out through an exhale valve. That only goes one way. You know, like a mask like this, the whole point is it does uptight your face. The only way air is getting in is through the filter, so the air is being filtered. Right, hopefully this FAQ video has answered lots of questions people have on coronavirus, at least the ones I keep seeing over and over and over again in the comments. But yeah, it's been a bit crazy for me because my views have gone up from something like 20,000 views over the last 48 hours up to now something like nearly 100,000 views over the last 48 hours on like typical two-day averages on YouTube, so yeah, crazy stuff. Don't forget to subscribe if you kind of like the idea of watching videos on masks and Geiger counters and stuff like that because I collect them. It's just all of a sudden people who aren't normally into that stuff suddenly want to know about gas masks and respirators and all that sort of stuff, so subscribe if you want to see more kind of content like this because I actually do a lot of it.