Guess it's a good thing that J. Vance is wearing his mask/gaiter since he is a little snot and that is what the common mask/gaiters are supposed to stop. Thinking ahead John, and well done!
I got about thirty minutes into the video just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. I was amazed at the tone deafness of her (Tammy whatever) "explanation", as she was dismissive of folks like Dr.s Fauci and Birx as being single points of expertise, all the while talking about her single point of expertise as being the one person that everyone should listen to. Conspiracy theorists must surely love her! She does have knowledge and experience with masks and their use, but I am not sure that I would agree that she is a noted and experienced pandemic expert, as someone like, say, Dr. Fauci is. Masks and careful social distancing are the only things reasonably proven as having a positive effect on stopping the spread of the virus. Getting the spread rate down is the only thing (other than a proven and applied vaccine) that is going to make us feel safe to get back out there and mingle. I do agree with her that the masks and gaiters that we are talking about wearing aren't good enough to stop an actual single viral particle, but to my limited understanding we don't tend to blow out individual viral particles, we blow out larger particles of mucous and sweat and the like that contain the virus particles. Catching enough of these larger particles is key to lowering the viral load of a random exposure, say passing another cyclist or pedestrian. Wearing one is a reasonable, short-term effort to help in lowering the larger spread of this frickin' thing. Oh, side note, I think wearing one also shows that you care about your fellow citizens health, not the worst message to send.
As for the gaiter, I have one similar to John's (just another one from Amazon) and I decided to put it to the test by a longish 32 mile ITT on the Bosque trail last week, a 30 mile MTB ride in the Oak Flat area last Sunday, and a 32 mile/2900ft ascent ride yesterday (humid!) in the foothills "finger" climbs. Never had a problem until I went up Hidden Valley Rd, then up Deer Trail Place w/no zig-zagging. Definitely zone 5 for me! The amount of sweat on the gaiter did cause me to be inhaling actual water (sweat? ewww!) so I did push it down. Bonus, btw, on both the MTB and hard RR, when you start heading back down, you get one excellent cooling effect. Second bonus on the MTB ride, no bugs/debris/dust, which usually causes me to have coughing fits several times in each ride. I am probably going to adopt this as a piece of technical riding gear at least through bug season!
Oh, and I heard on FB that this Tammy person is the love child of Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and that she just wants to shame them because she couldn't figure out how to become an actual doctor. I can't prove it, but it must be true since it was on the interwebs. Just sayin'!
M. John Jordan (mjohnjordan@yahoo.com)