Rafe wrote: ↑Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:51 pm Okay. So I watched part of Judge Lina (aka "Dora the Explorer") Hidalgo's daily SARAside Press Conference today. There was much touching of face masks, but it didn't occur to me until the final few minutes televised on KPRC to grab a pen and keep a tally.
A refresher: If you wear a mask, every inhaled breath comes through the fabric/material, which means it becomes a collection/trapping filter for everything on the outside you're breathing in. That means touching the mask with your hands is potentially much worse than simply touching your face to, say, brush back hair or scratch your chin. Dora the Explorer's executive order for face masks to be worn throughout Harris County went into effect today; failure to comply carries up to s $1,000 fine and is technically, under GC 408, a Class B misdemeanor.
My tally lasted only from 11:35 to 11:44, just after Q&A started and KPRC moved back to other news programming. The speakers were Dora the Explorer herself (her county website here: https://cjo.harriscountytx.gov/), and Dr. Umair A. Shah, MD, MPH, Executive Director of Harris County Public Health (http://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/About/Leadership).
Lina Hidalgo: 11:35 - 11:37 - Touched mask 3 times, once was a full left-hand palm on the mask to adjust it, then she placed that hand on the side of the podium.
Umair Shah: 11:37 - 11:42 - Touched mask 12 times.
Lina Hidalgo: 11:42 - 11:44 - Touched mask 7 times; this was while responding to a question, which evidently caused her to have more nervous hand activity than she did during the prepared statement.
So in all, over a period of only 9 minutes, the county judge who issued the face-mask order and the MD who leads Harris County Public Health, reached up and touched their face masks 22 times. That means, collectively, they reached up and touched their masks an average of once every 24.6 seconds, or about 2.4 times every minute. That works out to an amazing 144 touches per hour. Without a mask on and under normal, non-coronavirus conditions, the average person touches his or her face roughly 16 times per hour. The highest number came from a 2015 study of medical students in Australia, where they touched their faces 23 times per hour (https://www.healthline.com/health-news/ ... -your-face).
Way to lead by example, Harris County! Order mandatory face masks, then proceed to, on network television in your press conferences, do the very worst thing you can do--continually touch the front of your own masks--and do so 900% more often than the typical person touches his or her face.
Good job!
I think this would be more effective for them.
