Travel and masks

[Bird on a Fire]

That's interesting, thanks.

The point about humidity also relates to my question about roaring log fires, because IIRC they dry the room out more than other heating sources.

The basic thing of just trying not to be too close to unmasked people (which is basically all people in the UK these days) seems to be solid advice. Personally I've never liked crowds much anyway.

[shpalman]

Face masks make people look more attractive

Dr Michael Lewis, a reader from Cardiff University’s school of psychology and an expert in faces, said research carried out before the pandemic had found that medical face masks reduced attractiveness because they were associated with disease or illness.

“We wanted to test whether this had changed since face coverings became ubiquitous and understand whether the type of mask had any effect,” he said.

“Our study suggests faces are considered most attractive when covered by medical face masks. This may be because we’re used to healthcare workers wearing blue masks and now we associate these with people in caring or medical professions. At a time when we feel vulnerable, we may find the wearing of medical masks reassuring and so feel more positive towards the wearer.”

[Sciolus]

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=1001&p=42227#p42227

[shpalman]

Masking may lead to less severe infection?

Well, they seem to assume that it would and try to model how much, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but there are a few references about masking in the introduction.