You claim to not be an expert but from reading your post I'm not sure you really feel that way about yourself.
No expert. I just know what I've been doing (which is about the opposite of what a lotta people in here are saying you should or shouldn't do) and that, while I'll probably eventually get covid, I haven't yet.
The ID docs are the experts at my work. I've done what they say and so far it's worked.
So, forgive me for listening to actual experts instead of people in this thread who act like a mask is a mask is a mask......
Actual experts used to think blood letting was the answer to good health in their time. I'd like to try some of these better mask in a paint booth and see how much of the over spray gets past or not. The so called painters mask that some wear as protection are an absolute failure when it comes to that.
Respiratory protection isn't voodoo.
Covid is droplet precautions unless you're doing an aerosolizing procedure. Then we treat it as airborne. Those precautions, and appropriate PPE, have been in use for decades.
I do aerosolizing procedures. I follow appropriate precautions. I have remained covid free.
Either I'm the luckiest SOB ever (I'm not, I didn't win mega-millions) or the experts who set the PPE guidelines have implemented ones that work to protect me from the (often dying) covid patients I deal with.
And, yes, with the proper cartridge I can weld galvanised in my shop safely, and do so on occasion. I'm sure that, with the appropriate vapor rated cartridge, painting is perfectly safe, if not the most comfortable.
