OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – Even though we’re more than a year into the global pandemic, it seems there is still debate about wearing a mask to prevent COVID-19 infections.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been encouraging Americans to wear masks in public in order to protect themselves and others from COVID-19.
Samantha Lim had a promising one in front of her. She was just a freshman at Iolani School working her way onto the headmaster’s list when tragedy struck in 2019. Now her parents are getting to meet a part of her once again.
Lim packed her life full of the things she loved. She was a tenacious midfielder in soccer and a violinist since the age of three.
“Samantha was very talented in a lot of things,” Samantha’s father Steve said. “With sports, and she was a great student, and she worked really hard to make her high school’s orchestra team. She had her first big performance,”
That performance in November of 2019 ended in the blink of an eye.
“During the performance with a packed crowd, a very hot building that there was a very hot day. She basically collapsed in the middle of a performance,” Steve said.
Samantha suffered from a rare condition. Her arteries became entangled in her brain. It is called a brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM).
Steve agonizes looking back but says there were no warning signs that showed what was coming.
“Even though she didn’t suffer much, at least the only thing that we regret is we didn’t get to say goodbye in person,” Steve said.
On Saturday, Steve and Samantha’s mom Jaemi dug for the courage to meet with the recipient of her right kidney for the first time at Legacy of Life Hawaii.
Cynthia Duong was 40 at the time and on dialysis, in need of a kidney transplant.
“I feel so nervous and I’m very grateful that their family made a very hard decision to donate all those organs,” Duong said.
Jaemi says it has been hard to be strong and was brought to tears instantly meeting Cynthia.
“To see Samantha in her once again. It was a joy. So, I was crying, I was lonely and sad that I miss her, but also joy,” Jaemi said.
The Lim ohana says it was an easy family decision between them and Samantha’s two sisters. Samantha also donated her left kidney, liver, and lungs. She ended up saving four people in need.
“We knew giving her organs to people in need to help, that’s what she wanted,” Jaemi said to Cynthia. “So, like I said, it was an easy decision to see you. To see you, healthy and keeping you healthy, is such a blessing.”
The Lims called Samantha their Samshine. Now, her light shines bright in the lives of those she saved. Steve says he can’t wait to see her again.
“She’ll always have that kind of that shine in our heart, and we’ll never get over it. But with meeting just in our memory in our, in our legacy makes life a little bit more bearable.”
For more information visit https://legacyoflifehawaii.org/
However, some people argue that certain types of masks don’t do much good since the virus particles are small enough to get through.
While that is true, health experts say it is about how the particles travel and not just their size.
“It’s one of the most common, incorrect pieces of information that’s being spread on the internet, that cloth masks don’t work because the virus is so small it can go right through it,” said Dr. Dale Bratzler, Oklahoma University Chief COVID officer.
Officials say that while carbon dioxide can escape from cloth masks, the COVID-19 virus typically cannot. That’s because the respiratory droplets that carry the virus are much larger than the virus or CO2, so they cannot pass through a mask.
“The virus comes out on droplets. So I’ve seen that in so many different presentations. ‘You know, the virus is 50 to 150 nanometers, that can go through a cloth mask.’ Absolutely, that’s true. It can go through a KN95, it can go through a surgical mask. But that’s not how the virus comes out of your mouth. It comes out riding droplets, aerosols and droplets. And cloth masks are incredibly effective at preventing droplets and aerosols from coming out of your mouth. They’re not perfect but they’re very good,” Dr. Bratzler said.
A recent MIT explainer on mask effectiveness pointed to a lab experiment involving laser-light-scattering to visualize droplets generated while subjects were speaking.
“While each utterance generated hundreds of droplets ranging in size from 20 to 500 micrometers, the researchers showed that covering the speaker’s mouth with a damp washcloth blocked nearly all of them,” according to MIT analysis.
To prove it yourself, Dr. Bratzler says you should wear a mask for a couple of hours at a time.
“Just wear a mask for a few hours and feel the inside of it. You’ll feel the moisture on the inside of the mask. That’s why we ask you to wash the mask frequently,” Dr. Bratzler said.
MIT analysis suggests a number of real-world studies that reinforce the value of mask use.
“A recent study, for example, used publicly available data to calculate the COVID-19 growth rate before and after mask mandates in 15 states and the District of Columbia between the end of March and late May of 2020. Researchers found that mask mandates led to a marked slowdown in the daily growth rate, estimating that mask mandates may have prevented up to 450,000 cases of COVID-19,” author Kim Schive writes.
Though masks are not 100 percent effective, doctors say they dramatically reduce the risk of infecting others.
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“They’re very effective and multiple studies have shown when both people are wearing a mask, even a simple two-layer cloth mask, it dramatically reduces droplets and aerosols that come out of your mouth. It reduces that zone of contamination that’s around you and protects both parties,” he said.