Surgical vs Homemade Masks: What To Know

I will concede that homemade masks can be as effective as surgical masks if and only if you happen to have a five million dollar surgical mask factory in your backyard. A simple homemade cloth mask gives diminishing returns when it comes to filtering out viruses and particulate matter. Typically, they only filter 50, 40, or even as low as 30 percent of particulate matter, which is admittedly better than nothing.

Compare it to an ASTM Level 3 N95 mask, which filter out 98 percent of particulate matter. Breaking it down into layman's terms is pretty simple. Consider the past, when a gentleman would offer his handkerchief to a lady. Looking back at this in a post-COVID-19 world is sort of gross. Where has this handkerchief been? Would you rather clean your nose with some fop’s old rag or a nice crisp, clean sheet of Kleenex?

Using a mask over and over only exposes it to more germs. Repeated washing renders it even less effective. Single-use surgical masks are still unbeatable when compared to many of the alternatives people use to defend against COVID-19. Watch us break down the matchup in the video.

Surgical mask vs homemade mask: does Lloyd Armbrust have something against homemade masks?

No. As long as you have a five million dollar factory at your house at your factory. I think that at one point they were necessary. You saw all these stories of grandmas knitting masks and stuff and that was actually heroic to be honest.

But once we got over that hump there’s no reason to keep doing. 

Why should people who have been using their own homemade masks make the transition over to a surgical mask?

It's it's basic science. A cloth mask can be as ineffective as 30, 40, maybe 50 percent.Surgical masks are 98 percent effective. In the past, you know, remember when uh you know a damsel would sneeze, a gentleman would pull out his handkerchief and offer it to her. Gross! Now we're like, wait a second is that a brand new handkerchief? Now, we have Kleenex. It's it's literally the same concept.

If you're if you're using something that's reusable, but it's constantly in your face, it’s like, if your arm is bleeding. You could take your sock off and make a tourniquet. But you know what's better? A tourniquet!