No, Wearing a Face Mask Does Not Weaken Your Immune System
Argh! I am tired of hearing that wearing a face mask will either 1. Reduce your lung capacity, 2. Give you carbon dioxide poisoning or 3. Weaken your immune system and make you sick.
Let’s address the third one. The argument is that because a mask reduces the number of microbes coming into your body, it results in your immune system getting lazy.
So, let’s address this:
Do Masks Reduce the Microbes Entering Your Body?
This comes back to why we should be wearing masks:
You don’t wear a face mask to protect yourself. The reason we need to wear masks during the pandemic is because of asymptomatic and presymptomatic infection. You may have COVID-19 and not know it yet (or ever, until fully reliable antibody tests are widely available). The mask reduces the microbes you breathe out.
Yes, it does slightly reduce the microbes you breathe in, as it will block droplets in both directions.
On top of that, microbes enter our bodies by all kinds of other means. Every time we eat, every time we drink, every time we kiss our partner(s).
Wearing a mask, especially as most of us aren’t exactly wearing them all day, doesn’t really reduce your incoming…