Why we must wear masks: talking, even breathing, expels microscopic droplets.
The louder we talk, the more potentially infectious droplets we released, with singing being about as bad as nonstop coughing. That explains why we have such big outbresks in churches. But even simple breathing releases micrscopic droplets that could contain viruses.
From a 2019 article in Nature:
It has long been recognized that particles expelled during human expiratory events, such as sneezing, coughing, talking, and breathing, serve as vehicles for respiratory pathogen transmission.
The relative contribution of each expiratory activity in transmitting infectious microorganisms, however, remains unclear. Much previous research has focused on coughing and sneezing activities that yield relatively large droplets (approximately 50 ?m or larger) easily visible to the naked eye. Less noticeable, but arguably more infectious for some diseases, are the smaller particles emitted during sneezing and coughing as well as during breathing and talking. These small particles are believed to be generated during breathing and talking from the mucosal layers coating the respiratory tract via a combination of a “fluid-film burst” mechanism within the bronchioles and from vocal folds adduction and vibration within the larynx. The particles emitted during breathing and typical speech predominantly average only 1 ?m in diameter and are thus too small to see without specialized equipment; most people outside of the community of bioaerosol researchers are less aware of them.
Despite their small size, however, these micron-scale particles are sufficiently large to carry a variety of respiratory pathogens such as measles virus (50–500?nm), influenza virus (100?nm–1?µm), and Mycobacterium tuberculosis (1–3?µm). Indeed, recent work by Yan et al. has confirmed that significant amounts of influenza viral RNA are present in small particles (<5 ?m) emitted by influenza-infected individuals during natural breathing, without coughing or sneezing. These small particles are potentially more infectious than larger sneeze- or cough-generated droplets for several reasons. First, smaller particles persist in the air for longer time periods before setting by gravity, thus increasing the probability of inhalation by susceptible individuals. Second, smaller particles have a larger probability of penetrating further into the respiratory tract of a susceptible individual to initiate a lower respiratory tract infection. Third, and perhaps most importantly, speech can release dramatically larger numbers of particles compared to coughing. Early work by Papineni and Rosenthal and Loudon and Roberts reported that speaking (as exemplified by counting aloud) releases about 2–10 times as many total particles as a single cough. Similarly, Loudon and Roberts investigated the role of singing in the spread of tuberculosis and showed that the percentage of airborne droplet nuclei generated by singing is 6 times more than that emitted during normal talking and approximately equivalent to that released by coughing. More recent work using advanced particle characterization techniques have yielded similar results. Chao et al. used an interferometric imaging technique to obtain the size distribution of particles larger than 2 ?m and found that counting aloud from 1 to 100 releases at least 6 times as many particles as an individual cough. Likewise, Morawska and coworkers reported that counting aloud for 10?seconds followed by 10?seconds of breathing, repeated over two minutes, releases half as many particles as 30?seconds of continual coughing, which in turn releases half as many particles as saying “aah” for 30?seconds. They also reported that more particles are released when speech is voiced, which involves vocal folds vibration, rather than whispered, which does not.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-38808-z
= new reply since forum marked as read
Finally put that sewing machine mom left me to good use. I don't really know how to sew, but I know how to thread the needle and turn it on. The masks aren't pretty but they do the job, kinda like a lot of us. LOL
I've been following these easy instructions::
And I applied the suggestion of this one to use a plastic-coated twist tie to make a nose clip:
And here's one you can make in seconds without any sewing- just need two rubber bands and a hanky/bandana. https://www.facebook.com/groups/koronavirushrvatska/permalink/565572420981204/
Cotton cloth face masks really do protect us and others. Here's a really interesting video by a couple of researchers who explain how the Czech Republic was able to get the virus under control using homemade masks:
One of those researchers put out this video showing how to make a very effective mask out of a simple cotton t-shirt, all you need is a pair of scissors:
I highly recommend you watch the above video!
I couldn't sew anything if my life depended on it. 
I haven't left the apartment for 3 weeks except to go to the lobby to pick up groceries, packages or mail, but if I do leave I will use one of my many scarves as protection/disease prevention gear.
Stay healthy, SunSeeker! 
