On December 7, a Facebook user Nino Gaprindashvili published a video, which is originally English but is dubbed in Russian. The video shows a man that does not say his name and addresses the viewers as their “favorite science teacher”. The man discusses the masks and claims that the students should always wear them, but he also proceeds to communicate with the viewers by reading from a text from a paper; one of the papers reads that YouTube’s artificial intelligence system would not be able to read these texts.
The man in the video puts on a mask and says that he would measure the CO2 level behind the mask with a CO2 detector. He claims that if the CO2 is below 1,000 parts per minute (ppm), this would be safe; a number above 1,000 would be problematic, whereas a number above 2,000 could cause headache and sickness of the person wearing the mask.
The video shows that after 10 inhalations, the detector exceeded 10,000 ppm. After that, the man in the video repeated that wearing the mask even for 6-8 hours is safe for the pupils at schools, despite the high ppm. He notes that even though the ppm should be below 1,000, he is sure that people would cope with this high measure as well. In this segment of the video, the man shows a paper to the camera which reads that he hopes YouTube would require long time to block this video.
As of December 14, the video published by Nino Gaprindashvili has 96 shares. Based on Crowdtangle, Nino Gaprindashvili shared the video in public Facebook groups 16 times.
The test conducted by the man in the video is inaccurate, as the gas detector – the tool used by him – is used to measure CO2 levels in large or/and confined spaces, not behind the masks. Tests, carried out with relevant tools, show that the level of CO2 in the body does not reach dangerous levels even while wearing several masks.
Gas detector is used to measure the CO2 level in enclosed spaces, not behind the masks.
In an interview with The France 24 Observers, a representative of one of the gas detector-producing companies mentions that the machine is not made for measuring the CO2 level behind masks – it is used to measure the CO2 levels in larger spaces, such as rooms or restricted, confined spaces.
The company representative also mentions that when the machine is used to try to measure the CO2 level behind the mask, the person wearing the mask breathes too close to the machine. Therefore, due to the sensitivity of the sensor and the fact that the space behind the mask is too small, there isn’t enough time for the meter to drop back down to zero before the next breath, which means the alarm just continues going off.
The tool used by the man in the video is called AZ 7722 and is available on a website of a Taiwanese company AZ Instrument Corp. The webpage includes a video, warning the users of the tool not to breathe close to the tool, as the exhaled carbon dioxide results in inaccurate measurements.
In a captured screen below the video we also see that even if a person is not wearing a mask and breathes close to the detector, the CO2 level is quite high.
Similar videos were disseminated in various countries in July 2020. In these videos people try to measure the CO2 level behind the mask with gas detectors and claim that wearing masks is dangerous. Various fact-checking organizations, such as factcheck.afp.com and factcheck.org, have fact-checked these videos and labelled the experiments flawed. YouTube deleted some of those videos for violating the terms of the platform, but some videos are still available.
The video, uploaded by Nino Gaprindashvili, is also available on YouTube at this stage. Moreover, the given video is also available on a Russian social network website VK.
Tests that confirm that masks do not cause oxygen deficiency and CO2 intoxication.
UC San Diego Health, an academic medical center at the University of California, published a video on YouTube showing two tests measuring the level of carbon dioxide in the body while wearing a mask.
In the first case, a pulse oximetry was used. This tool measures how saturated is blood with oxygen and it can rapidly detect even small changes in how efficiently oxygen is being carried to the extremities furthest from the heart.
A normal level of pulse oximetry should be between 95-100% – this number denotes the oxygen saturation in blood.
In the video, the person who has the pulse oximeter attached to the finger, is wearing six medical masks, but the device still shows 98% – the same level indicated by the device while the person was wearing only one mask. Afterwards, the participant of the test puts on a reusable mask and measures the oxygen saturation again – the device then shows 97%, which is still within the normal boundaries.
In the second video, the test is carried out with a transcutaneous capnometer. The transcutaneous capnometer is a device attached to a skin surface with a sensor and measures the carbon dioxide level in body tissues. The device measures whether the carbon dioxide exhaled by the individual is sufficient. In this case, a normal level is 30-45 millimeters of mercury, which is a unit of pressure.
The test participant’s level of carbon dioxide was 31.6 while wearing one mask, only 0.2 higher while wearing three masks, and 0.7 higher after adding three more, including one reusable, masks – only reaching 32.4 millimeters of mercury, which is in the normal boundaries.
University of Miami study: Masks do not increase the CO2 levels even among the people with acute respiratory failure.
On October 2, a new study by the University of Miami was published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society (ATS). Under the study, researchers studied 15 healthy physicians without lung conditions and 15 veterans with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
In order to assess the changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, researchers compared the breathing of each individual before and after wearing a surgical mask through a six-minute walking test.
During the walk, subjects with severe COPD experienced decreased oxygenation as expected by the researchers. However, at the five-minute mark and 30 minutes after the walk, researchers found no major changes in oxygen saturation or carbon dioxide levels with either group.
See the archive of Nino Gaprindashvili’s Facebook post: https://archive.ph/6w1kz
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