They appear to be just be replaceable filters like an N100 paint masks, not valves, but because of the design no doubt most people/enforcement will think they are valves.
Does anyone actually care about what type of mask it is? Where I live having your face covered seems to be enough to not have anyone look at you twice (not saying this is a good thing).
Yeah you can parade around with dirty underwear on your face and it’s completely acceptable. It’s both comical and sad that people treat any crappy face covering as some kind of immunity and any pretense of social distancing is gone.
Unfortunately, the appearance of compliance nearly always trumps true compliance. Masks in California at least are 50-50: "Don't bother me or look at me funny" with "I'm doing my part to make everyone else safe". We really do live in a society.
Welp, this seems as good a place as any to have this debate....
Why is that so bad?
If I protect myself, I protect you by proxy. I can't infect you if I'm not infected. And a proper valved, sealed, FFP3 mask gives a really high level of protection, while a valveless N95 is moisture-saturated and useless in a matter of hours, and a simple face covering is no protection at all in enclosed spaces, in either direction.
This is only good as long as you can guarantee that you're not infected. Remember, you're potentially infectious a few days before your first symptoms even develop, if they even develop.
This is why valves are not useful and not accepted.
If your mask gets moisture-saturated, just replace it.
>This is only good as long as you can guarantee that you're not infected
Why? All of these measures are probabilistic.
P(infect others) = P(infected) * P(transmission)
Simple masks don't have much impact on P(infected), but substantially reduce P(transmission) under some circumstances. Valved FFP3 don't have much impact on P(transmission) [not zero], but vastly reduce P(infected) in virtually all circumstances. It's not clear to me even under this simplistic analysis that it is not superior. And in an enclosed space, the effect of simple masks on P(transmission) is almost wiped out.
>If your mask gets moisture-saturated, just replace it.
A lower transmission probability is always a good thing, no matter what your probability of being infected is.
In a public space there is simply no way of efficiently knowing and verifying everybodies P(infected), thus the only remaining measure is to reduce P(transmission).
And yes, if that‘s the time it takes for your mask to get wet, then it is time to replace it.
It's good to protect yourself, but the chief reason covid-19 is particularly deadly is that people are contagious for a relatively long time before showing any symptoms.
Mitigation measures should target what makes a disease particularly deadly and neutralize it, in order to be effective.
This does not protect you from exhaling droplets on surfaces, which in turn could be touched by others and infect at a later time by rubbing their faces or other things.
