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Aerosol expert Linsey Marr's take on wearing masks at outdoor activities

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Category: campus experience Video duration: Aerosol expert Linsey Marr's take on wearing masks at outdoor activities
Virginia Tech’s nationally-recognized expert in the airborne transmission of viruses, Charles P. Lunsford Professor Linsey Marr, shares her approach on wearing a mask outdoors. Marr shared her insight during a live streamed conversation with President Tim Sands on Aug. 19.

The outdoors is much, much safer than indoors because again, this is, the virus moves around like cigarette smoke. So if someone's smoking indoors, that can build up, other people are exposed. If they're smoking outdoors, it usually quickly disperses and becomes diluted in the air. Some people nearby will be exposed. So I'm thinking about that as I'm going to the football game. Do I wear a mask or not? Okay, well, first of all, I'm vaccinated, so, but that doesn't, that's not fully protective as we've seen. If I know that everyone sitting around me is also vaccinated, I'd probably forego the mask. But if I am, first of all, if I'm unvaccinated then and I'm close to all those people, I should definitely be wearing a mask to protect myself. But if I'm in a section where I'm not sure about the vaccination status of the people around me, I would probably I would wear a mask because you're there for two or three hours at a time. You're very close to other people. People are yelling and shouting, they're excited. (We hope they are.) (That's our expectation.) If the team is doing well and we know that people release a lot more viruses into the air with loud talking and cheering and yelling compared to just breathing, for example. So, so that's, that's where I am on the mask situation.