Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Mask Question Problematically Compares Covid-19 Coronavirus To Farts

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene issued a brief question about face masks and Covid-19 on Twitter. But it didn’t smell right. She started off the tweet by stating, “So many people still wearing masks. I just want to ask you.” And then she asked, “If a pair of underwear, really thick ones, high quality cotton, can’t protect you from a fart, then how will a mask protect you from covid,” as you can see here:

Was her question a “I really want to know the answer” question? Or was Taylor Greene stepping on the gas, so to speak, to try to make a problematic point?

Regardless, readers of the tweet used Twitter’s Community Notes feature to offer a whiff of science and get to the bottom of Taylor Greene’s fart question. As you can see accompanying Taylor Greene’s tweet above, the Community Notes included a comment that “A sneeze generates droplet nuclei ranging from 0.125 μm to 10 μm with a median size of 1 μm, which N95 masks can trap with 95% to 99% efficiency. Human olfactory receptors can detect smell from much smaller molecules, such as sulfur, with an approximate diameter of 0.0004 μm.” The comment also provided a link to a publication in the American Journal of Gastroenterology that in the end was helpful to the conversation. The publication described why you may still be able to smell smoke while wearing an N95 mask. Yeah, those tiny little fragrant fart particles that come out of a person’s rear end typically are substantially smaller than the serve acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and other respiratory viruses such as the influenza virus and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Yes, in this case, size matters. A face mask, even a N95 face mask, isn’t supposed to block everything. Otherwise, it would be like putting a concrete condom or a fish bowl around your head and sealing it with duct tape. A face mask can still let certain things, even smaller things, such oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules, through so that you can still do stuff like breathe.

Plus, a face mask is not the same as underwear. No real public health expert has been advocating wearing underwear on your face to protect yourself and others against the SARS-CoV2 during the pandemic. That’s why public health experts have been recommending that you wear a N95 or a KN95 face mask if available. A surgical face mask or a cloth face mask would not be as effective at blocking viruses but would still be better than wearing nothing.

Finally, it’s not as if underwear wouldn’t be doing anything to a fart. If given the choice, would you want someone farting next to you with pants and underwear on or without them? If your answer is the latter, then you may not be as welcome at dinner parties. Underwear probably decreases the number of fart particles that make it into the air at least to some degree.

Similarly, a face mask that is not as effective as an N95 or a KN95-level mask may still be able to block at least some of the viruses coming out of your mouth and nose. It also may be able to block at least some of the viruses that may be hanging in the air from entering your mouth and nose. Your chances of getting infected depend on how many virus particles end up getting into your body. The minimum infective dose (MID) of a virus is the number of virus particles that need to be inhaled for to actually get infected with the virus. Even if you do end up getting infected, the severity of your resulting Covid-19 may also depend on how many virus particles was in that initial infectious dose. Inhaling a very large number of virus particles could put you at greater risk for more severe Covid-19.

The bottom line is that multiple scientific studies have supported the use of face masks in preventing the spread of the SARS-CoV-2. Face masks can also be effective at preventing the transmission of other respiratory viruses such as the influenza virus and RSV. So why is Taylor Greene continuing to question their use? Hasn’t she caught wind of the fact that the U.S. is now facing surges of not only Covid-19 but also the flu and RSV? In the end, it’s important to remember that such viruses can not only be silent but deadly. They can cause a lot of suffering too.