Daily Archives: June 5, 2020

Full Guide to Wearing Face Masks

Tags : face coverings

The New York Times and Washington Post have now come around to a position I advocated for right here on Medium final week: We should always all be wearing masks. Not just health care workers, but ALL of us. Each time we exit in public.
Why?
Because they work.
Research from the SARS outbreak in 2003 shows that washing arms 10+ instances every day was fifty five% efficient in stopping virus transmission; wearing a masks was actually more efficient, reducing transmission by about sixty eight%.
Combining multiple types of protection — hand washing, masks wearing, gloves, and one other layer of outerwear (gowning) — was 91% effective.
Read that once more: 91% efficient at stopping virus transmission.
COVID-19 and SARS are similar types of viruses (coronaviruses), and it is sensible that what works to stop transmission for one will work to cease transmission of the other.
Masks work, first, because they’re a physical barrier to whatever’s riding along on that air you’re breathing or moving through. Right here’s a chart showing the relative barrier effectiveness for varied materials:

Secondly, they work because they maintain you from touching your face all day long. The mask makes you more self-acutely aware of the fact that you’re not supposed to touch your face- specifically, your mouth, nose, and eyes, and the areas round them- and if you by chance do, you’ll touch the masks, not your skin directly.
Third, the experience of other countries who masks show that masks work within the real world. Within the words of Jeremy Howard, researcher and Masks4All activist, explaining a chart in his recent Youtube video showing how some international locations have successfully “flattened the curve” on new infections: “In the event you take a look at all the countries which have flat curves, they are international locations the place masks-wearing is extraordinarily normal, and NOT wearing a mask in places like public transport would be considered anti-social.” He notes that the Czech Republic went from zero masks usage to one hundred% in 10 days, and in the process they halted the expansion of new covid-19 cases. The Czechs made their own masks- the government didn’t give them out.

In case you still should be persuaded, take a look at this Chinese examine of an area outbreak case on January 22 through the peak Lunar New Year journey season. A sick individual on the bus who did not work together with anybody spread the virus to 7 others, some of whom had been seated much more than 6 ft away. Two new passengers caught the virus 30 minutes after the original sick person had left the bus. NONE OF THE PEOPLE WEARING MASKS WERE INFECTED. Read the article, it’s very detailed, with a schematic of precisely the place folks were sitting on the bus.
So let’s say you’re convinced, and now you’re thinking of some form of face covering. What are your options?
First, please don’t buy masks commercially, if by some miracle you may discover them now. Commercially made PPE ought to be reserved for medical personnel at this time. Unfortunately, the scarcity of commercially made PPE, and the dearth of foresight that caused us to be in such a place of shortage, is probably why we initially got this messaging of “Masks don’t work!” They do, people just didn’t need you to know it for a while, to avoid a run on masks. Think of the empty shelves in supermarkets across America the place rest room paper used to live, and you perceive why.
The simplest thing you can do to mask NOW are to use materials across the house. Get creative; anything that covers the mouth and nose and stays in place will work.

While it’s greatest if the mask matches well and there are not any gaps between your face and the outside air, don’t give up in your homemade mask should you can’t achieve that. Any face covering will hold you from touching the skin round your nose and mouth directly, which could develop into an important mechanism by which masks block virus transmission. If you inadvertently touch your face while you’re wearing a mask, you’ll just touch the masks, not your skin.
You possibly can attempt to shape your face covering utilizing pipe cleaners or opened-up rubber-coated paper clips in the half that goes over your nostril to make a tighter match — experiment. An important thing is that you simply wash your fingers, put on your face covering, and exit of the house protected.

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