Face Masks Lead to Breathing Dangerous Levels of Carbon Dioxide Even When Sitting Still, Study Finds

Wearing a face mask results in exposure to dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in inhaled air, even when the mask is worn for just five minutes when sitting still, a study has found.

3 min read

Wearing a face mask results in exposure to dangerous concentrations of carbon dioxide in inhaled air, even when the mask is worn for just five minutes when sitting still, a study has found.

With surgical masks, the CO2 concentration of inhaled air exceeded the danger zone of 5,000 ppm in 40% of cases. With FFP2 respirators it exceeded it in 99% of cases. The CO2 concentrations were higher for children and for those who breathed more frequently.

The study, a pre-print (not yet peer-reviewed) from a team in Italy, used a technique called capnography to take the measurements of CO2 in inhaled air over the course of five minutes, following a ten minute period of rest, with participants seated, silent and breathing only through the nose. A medic took measurements at minutes three, four and five, with an average of the three measurements being used in the analysis.

The study found the mean CO2 concentration of inhaled air without masks was 458 ppm. While wearing a surgical mask, the mean CO2 was over 10 times higher at 4,965 ppm, exceeding 5,000 ppm in 40.2% of the measurements. While wearing an FFP2 respirator, the average CO2 was nearly double again at 9,396 ppm, with 99.0% of participants showing values higher than 5,000 ppm. Among children under 18, the mean CO2 concentration while wearing a surgical mask was well above the safe limit at 6,439 ppm; for an FFP2 respirator it was nearly double again at 12,847 ppm. The researchers found that breaths per minute only had to increase by three, to 18, for the mean concentration to reach 5,271 ppm in a surgical mask and breach the safe limit.

While the findings are clearly concerning enough, the researchers note that “the experimental conditions, with participants at complete rest and in a constantly ventilated room, were far from those experienced by workers and students during a typical day, normally spent in rooms shared with other people or doing some degree of physical activity”. In such conditions the CO2 concentration of inhaled air is likely to be considerably higher.

While the study did not find a reduction in blood oxygen saturation during the five minutes of observation of a person at rest, the authors note that research on 53 surgeons wearing masks for an extended period found that blood oxygen saturation decreased noticeably. They add that exposure to CO2 in inhaled air at concentrations exceeding 5,000 ppm for long periods is “considered unacceptable for the workers, and is forbidden in several countries, because it frequently causes signs and symptoms such as headache, nausea, drowsiness, rhinitis and reduced cognitive performance”.

The authors note this is the first study to assess properly the CO2 concentration of inhaled air while wearing a face mask. Two earlier studies were small and did not adequately remove water vapour. A third recent one was retracted for, among other concerns, not using a capnograph to distinguish inhaled and exhaled air. The present study addresses these problems. The full results are shown in the tables below.

The study is a pilot study, and so calls for larger and more detailed studies to confirm the effects it observes and explore them further. The authors remark that should their findings be confirmed (and there is no reason to expect they would not be), mask-wearing should be “reduced as much as possible when the [Covid] risk is low”.

We might add that, given the lack of evidence masks do much if anything to prevent the spread of COVID-19, and the mounting evidence they do harm, they should be jettisoned as a pandemic measure entirely.

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130 Comments
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debwestsussex
debwestsussex
4 years ago

No shit Sherlock. I worked that out two years ago despite only having a biology O level

Silke David
Silke David
4 years ago

In Germany since December 2021 FFP2 masks were required everywhere.
I know of a nurse who complained to her HR department, stating that the German Health & Safety laws do not allow for extended wearing of this type of mask without a medical and no longer than 75 minutes and then a 50 minute break is mandatory.
HR said: We do not care, this is how it is.

CarrieAH
CarrieAH
4 years ago

I flew back from Greece yesterday on easyJet. The cabin crew announced it was now choice as to whether or not to wear a mask on the route home. I would say 99% didn’t wear one. The smiles were so good to see and passengers more relaxed.

Silke David
Silke David
4 years ago
Reply to  CarrieAH

How was Greece? I hear they are very strict there.

Amari
Amari
4 years ago

Where is the link to the study itself?

sskinner
sskinner
4 years ago

As well as the re-breathing of CO2 there is the other aspect that there was zero instruction of what to do with a used face mask. That indicates two things, that the masks were just theatre and the pathogen was not a serious threat. It may indicate a third thing in that there was a pandemic of compliance.

sskinner
sskinner
4 years ago

Who’d of guessed?

gedhurst
gedhurst
4 years ago

There is still however a widespread belief among the public that masks work. Meeting with a large group of ex-colleagues from a very large covid vaccine manufacturer last week, my mask scepticism was greeted with the bald assertion that, “No, no, masks DO work”.
The promulgation of the fake fomite or droplet transmission hypothesis early on in the pandemic scam has proved incredibly durable.

marebobowl
marebobowl
4 years ago

Thank you

Adrian25
Adrian25
4 years ago

More fools us, for putting up with and playing along with this entire Covid theatre and nonsense from the beginning.
And as for the fools who were so eager to get jabbed, you disgust me because by your meek compliance you put pressure on those of us who refused to go along with this insanity.

Nobody2021
Nobody2021
4 years ago

I see many people debating this study in terms of particle sizes, i.e CO2 is a gas and much smaller than a virus.

What I don’t see much of is the actual physics of force being discussed generally.

Take a piece of cloth and hold it to your mouth then breathe slowly through it. You probably won’t notice much of an effect.

Then try blowing as hard as you can and you may well struggle.

The greater the force the greater the air resistance.

That air has to go somewhere. If it’s not getting past the cloth fast enough it’s getting breathed back in.

Then there’s the issue of the better the mask the greater the force will be for air escaping from any gaps. No matter how you look at it, wearing a mask is probably not helping much and there’s a good chance it’s actually making things worse.

crisisgarden
crisisgarden
4 years ago

The mask was only ever a crisis prop, its use, no doubt, dreamed up in a PR Agency as a ‘look’ for the ‘pandemic’ . This is probably why their advent caught out the various health ‘experts’ such as Whitty and Fauci; it wasn’t their decision and they weren’t in the intelligence/corporate/ financial loop that decided we should be made to wear them.
As for healthcare professionals who continue to cling on to them… they are incapable of evidence-based rational critical thinking and I don’t think they should be practicing medicine.

JohnK
JohnK
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Many of the tactics used were PR props, this one being an easy one to promote, with the benefit of revenue to junk manufacturers. Quite likely labelled “made in China’ as well. It was also a kind of copy-cat job from parts of the world where it has been common practice to use such things on crowded public transport – e.g Tokyo on crush-loaded underground trains.

gregg
gregg
4 years ago

From the study
‘Blood oxygen saturation was measured through a LTD800® digital finger pulse oximeter’.
Oximeters measure the total blood oxygen bound to haemoglobin, including CO2. O2 in the blood can drop, CO2 can rise, and the oximeter can still display an ok oxygen level.

rtaylor
4 years ago

Child abuse.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  rtaylor

No less!

Dodgy Geezer
Dodgy Geezer
4 years ago

I question whether the results of this study apply in real life.

In real life, breathing 5000-10,000ppm of CO2 is uncomfortable. So anyone wearing a mask will let some fresh air enter around the edges – otherwise we would have people with poor lung function suffocating every time they climbed stairs.

Of course, that means that, in real life usage, the masks do not actually stop the transmission and reception of virus particles at all. But whoever thought that that was the reason for wearing them?

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

Every single measure imposed by the Covid Diktats seemed designed to damage human health: isolation, confinement indoors, denial of urgent hospital treatment dangerous masks, emotional cruelty, misuse of ventilators, misuse of drugs, denial of vitamin protocols, banning of life saving Ivermectin, mixing infected with uninfected in Care Homes, destruction of businesses causing emotional and mental disorders and suicides.

“Medical War” against the people ?

No evidence whatever that any of this had any effect on the spread or mortality rate of the ‘virus’. ( See Sweden)

All this used to stoke fear and push and cajole the mass ‘vaccination’ which provide no protection but have killed a minimum of 2,000 people and injured over one million (theses figures considered a gross underestimation by a factor of ten by the authorities themselves)

In a brief new statement, Mike Yeadon calls out all the Pharma companies involved accusing them of deliberate, orchestrated fraud and misinformation over the vaccine contents, application, efficacy, dangerous known side effects and of breaking all international safety regulations on the injection of pathogenic spike proteins into the body and calls for legal action against them.

The elites in Government are rushing through legislation to censor and close down… Read more »

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

Every single measure imposed by the Covid Diktats seemed designed to damage human health: isolation, confinement indoors, denial of urgent hospital treatment dangerous masks, emotional cruelty, misuse of ventilators, misuse of drugs, denial of vitamin protocols, banning of life saving Ivermectin, mixing infected with uninfected in Care Homes, destruction of businesses causing emotional and mental disorders and suicides.

“Medical War” against the people ?

No evidence whatever that any if this had any effecet on the spread or mortality rate of the ‘virus’. ( See Sweden)

All this to push and cajole the ‘vaccines’ which provide no protection but have killed a minimum of 2,000 people and injured over one million (theses figures considered a gross underestimation by a factor of ten by the authorities themselves)

Surely anyone with any intelligence will be drawing the very darkest of conclusions about the the real intentions of those in the Power Elites who have inflicted this deadly nightmare on the British people?

Now Johnson wants to hand over our Health Care and our bodily sovereignty to one of the principal architects of all this , Gates and his WHO !

What could possibly go even more wrong?

watersider
watersider
4 years ago

Well well what do you know!
I have been flogging this comatose horse for years.
As we breath out 40000 ppm of the stuff it stands to reason that the muzzled will breath in a large portion of it.
Btw I believe the US submariners are consider safe at 5000 ppm at sea.

milesahead
milesahead
4 years ago

Face Masks Lead to Breathing Dangerous Levels of Carbon Dioxide Even When Sitting Still

No shit, Sherlock!

mishmash
mishmash
4 years ago
Milo
Milo
4 years ago
Reply to  mishmash

Who does SHE think SHE is?

I’ll tell you WHAT she is – totally objectionable and obnoxious, not to mention completely thick and brain washed. And people have clearly PAID MONEY to go to a theatre to see her?

RedhotScot
RedhotScot
4 years ago

The evil CO2, the cause of warming, cooling, bad weather, good weather, rising oceans, falling oceans and everything else you could possibly imagine including killing kids now.

It’s worth noting that submariners, y’know, those nice chaps in charge of nuclear weapons, endure CO2 concentrations in excess of 6,000ppm with no ill effects.

I’m not convinced they would give one of them a big red button if he were going doolally every time the sub dived.

iane
iane
4 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

‘I’m not convinced they would give one of them a big red button if he were going doolally every time the sub dived.’

Hmm, I’m not so sure – I mean, look at that guy in the White House!

RedhotScot
RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  iane

Thankfully they don’t even trust him with a zimmer frame, his wife leads him around, and he takes advice from the Easter Bunny.

mishmash
mishmash
4 years ago

Be weary of citing this one to covitards, as they’ll latch onto the ‘pre-print’ aspect and call it bogus. Instead refer the to the dozens of other peer reviewed studies that have already shown this, some decades ago.
Follow the science unless the science doesn’t fit the narrative, then either ignore it, or manipulate the data to make it fit.

Mike Hunt
Mike Hunt
4 years ago

Could it be the case that wearing muzzles has had a detrimental effect , as WHO Pandemic response advised muzzles should not be worn initially ?

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

I keep losing masks, take it off put it down then can’t find it…. you know the score

To address this issue in a sustainable way my GP has agreed that I can have a mask stitched to my face

The GP says it a simple procedure taking less than twenty minutes using a domestic sewing machine

My GP is pie in earring this new procedure which she hopes will be pain free

JaneDoeNL
JaneDoeNL
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

If it’s pain free, it don’t work. After all, all these people were sold on the vaxx because feeling deathly ill after you got it meant it was working. Who can argue? If the vaxx killed you, then it clearly has saved you from dying from corona.

Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
4 years ago
Reply to  JaneDoeNL

Very good point. The jab killed you, but COVID didn’t! Job done!

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

Who knew it, Zippy was right after all…

Smelly Melly
Smelly Melly
4 years ago

To me wearing a mask is like sneezing into a hanky and then re-snorting the snot.

What I’d like to know is does the concentration of bacteria and viruses that the body is expelling increase whilst wearing a mask?

Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

Indeed. Whatever happened to

Catch it. Bin it. Kill it.

Now, it’s

Catch it and keep it clamped against your face for the next few hours, warm, moist, festering, multiplying, and back inside your lungs. To protect you and others.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

But then whatever happed to real ‘medical science’ and scientific investigation for the benefit of mankind ?

Captured by the charlatans Gates and Fauci and the Pharma billiomaires?

artfelix
artfelix
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

There’s some evidence that ingesting your own snot has a beneficial health effect. The mucus neutralises pathogens to the extent that when they are consumed they are in a weakened state and can prime your immune system against them. It’s why we evolved to pick our noses and eat it. We all do that, right?

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  artfelix

Indeed we do. And our ear wax (like that Australian politician a few years back)…

RedhotScot
RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

Short answer, the little natty blue jobs are supposed to be changed every 20 minutes as they get moist and attract all sorts of crap, including viruses which stick to them.

It’s not good to wear one all day before sticking it in a filthy pocket ready for the next days inhalation of it’s contaminated contents.

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

I always thought it was every thirty minutes. Still, I bet most maskers don’t do either.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Why not every ten minute to help shore up the Chinese economy and Communist Party even more?

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

Well described!

That is exactly what it is. I begin to see people who wear masks all day as essentially ‘unhealthy’ and therefore sadly to be avoided.

Just Passing Through
Just Passing Through
4 years ago

I’m no scientist myself but commonsense told me from day one that placing an obstruction over your mouth and nose and restricting your breathing can’t be too good for your health – which is why I refused to wear one. I knew of people who had to wear one for work reasons and these things were worn practically all day long even though they kept complaining of tiredness and headaches – I hinted that maybe it could be the mask but that possibility was always refused and instead they would put it down to something else … usually covid and then test themselves – but never would they link it to their daily mask wearing routine.

You know, I still see people slipping masks on before going into shops and even shop staff are still wearing the things all day long – I saw one person the other day walking down the high street on a bright sunny day and he had this huge mask that practically covered his whole face – it had three very large filters attached to it – one over his nose and two others on either side – I had to look twice because I… Read more »

Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
4 years ago

Exactly. The most incredible and downright scary thing to me from Day 1 of the mask “mandate’ was that so few people refused to block their own respiratory system.

CynicalRealist
CynicalRealist
4 years ago

Cult rituals don’t need to make any logical sense. If they did then religion would not exist.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

Indeed ! The most orgiastic rites of the ‘Magna Mater’ Cybele involved self-castration in imitation of Attis. Not much logic to that.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

Abject, hysterical, fear induced by a Government sponsored Mass Psyop cancels Common Sense and intelligence – who knew?

Stampeded animals go over cliffs. Humans are only animals after all

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

Slightly off subject

I have today written to the Metropolitan Police regarding their new policy of investigating historical fixed penalty notice offences

I have information that in 1962 (believed to be August) a distant relative of mine parked on double yellow lines in Putney

I await their response

CynicalRealist
CynicalRealist
4 years ago
Reply to  Cecil B

I wrote to them about that months ago – got the auto-response saying that they would respond in due course, blah, blah, blah.

Never heard anything further – what a surprise!

Free Lemming
Free Lemming
4 years ago

Just more proof of the importance of being vaccinated. Only the vaccines can really protect you. After reading this I ran along – well, I didn’t actually run as I’ve strangely acquired breathing difficulties – to my nearest faith site and rolled up my sleeve for another shot. I’m now the proud owner of 78 injection punctures and my scarred arm is a proud badge of honour. Although I’ve oddly picked up some serious health problems over the last year (heart palpitations, breathing issues and a blood clot on brain) it gives me confidence I’ll never get Covid… well, I have had Covid 6 times, but the point is I’ll never get serious Covid. All the anti-vaxers are so selfish and stupid, the vaccine is so clearly safe and effective you don’t even need to wear a mash… misk… musk… damn it, also seem to be having some speech issues. Coincidence.

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Don’t worry, you won’t get serious death…

CynicalRealist
CynicalRealist
4 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

No, indeed. If you die from the clotshots you will be much less dead than those who’ve allegedly died of Covid!

JaneDoeNL
JaneDoeNL
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

It doesn’t matter if you’re dead, it only matters whether you died of corona or not. All those old people who died of pneumonia – big whooptie if the pneumonia was caused by the flu virus, bacteria, whatever – just as long as it wasn’t coronavirus. Being, quite obviously, a fate worse than a fate worse than death.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  CynicalRealist

So much less that no-one in Government or Media even notices that you died – “Move along folks – nothing to see here !”

pjar
pjar
4 years ago
Reply to  Free Lemming

Talking of coincidence… I went to the dentist today. The usual hello, how’s your health, routine during which I told her that my appendix had exploded recently. “Gosh”, she said, “my brother in law’s went last year and you’re the fourth patient of mine it’s happened to recently…”

Filed under: Things that make you go hmm…

Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
4 years ago

Please suffocate yourselves to protect yourselves and others.

NO. EFF OFF.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago

WHO options for the world population – immediate altruistic voluntary Euthanasia for 5 billion to’ save the planet’ and improve the ‘lifestyle of the “Filthy Rich”, ( imagine the Game Parks they will be establishing!) or a shortened lifetime of Gates’ health destroying “experimental’; vaccinations and eating nothing but Mealy worms to make life shorter and not work living.

Any takers?

MTF
MTF
4 years ago

Is that the same CO2 that is described as a harmless gas by the climate sceptics?

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Fortunately, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is rather less than 5,000 ppm.

Actually, there was a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere before the great Noahic flood, and we were much healthier. Now I’m for it…

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

Exactly- such total garbage is now accepted as scientific truth!

We ought to have know it was all ‘garbage’ when a third rate, Democrat politician like Al Gore got hold of it to raise his shrunken profile!

Perhaps this “incontrovertible fact” was the real ‘inconvenient truth’ after all?

stewart
stewart
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Water is essential, innocuous or extremely hazardous, depending on the circumstances and the amount.

Probably true of almost everything.

I think you can probably get your head around that, don’t you?

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

Hold on, water drowns people. And as for forced medication in contravention of the Nuremberg codes water…

Now don’t ever go to sea. It’s for your own safety, you know.

MTF
MTF
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

That was my point. It all depends on the concentration but time and time again I here climate sceptics argue that it is harmless, indeed essential and therefore cannot be a bad thing.

Hugh
Hugh
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Fortunately, i have run the figures on human population compared to air, and can confirm that atmospheric CO2 would not get to anywhere near those levels with the current population (or the expected 10 to 15 billion peak).

RedhotScot
RedhotScot
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Sub mariners endure concentrations in excess of 6,000ppm*. Y’know, the guys with the red button marked Big Bangy Thing.

Your living room is probably at 3,000ppm with a couple of people in it.

Everything is fatal in excess.

*Parts Per Million atmospheric content in other words, 5,000 is pocket change to a millionaire.

A passerby
A passerby
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Harmful………unless you’re a plant

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  A passerby

Option for Vegans: destroy all plants and ‘Save the Planet’ from CO2 and then starve?

Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

I don’t believe anyone here would sensibly say that CO² in elevated concentrations is harmless to humans.

Now, what does this have to do with the Church of AGW?

Moist Von Lipwig
Moist Von Lipwig
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

There is no one skeptical there is a climate.

David Beaton
David Beaton
4 years ago
Reply to  MTF

Without CO2 there would be no life on Earth.

MTF
MTF
4 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Without CO2 there would be no life on Earth.

I am not sure that is totally true but certainly multicellular life on land pretty much depends on a minimal level of CO2. But I don’t know of anyone who disputes that. Is that just a bit of information or do you have a broader point?

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