Full Guide to Wearing Face Masks
The New York Occasions and Washington Post have now come round to a place I advocated for here on Medium last week: We should always all be wearing masks. Not just health care workers, however ALL of us. Every time we exit in public.
Why?
Because they work.
Analysis from the SARS outbreak in 2003 shows that washing fingers 10+ instances each day was 55% efficient in stopping virus transmission; wearing a mask was really more effective, reducing transmission by about sixty eight%.
Combining a number of types of protection — hand washing, masks wearing, gloves, and one other layer of outerwear (gowning) — was 91% effective.
Read that again: ninety one% efficient at stopping virus transmission.
COVID-19 and SARS are comparable types of viruses (coronaviruses), and it makes sense that what works to stop transmission for one will work to cease transmission of the other.
Masks work, first, because they are a physical barrier to whatever’s using alongside on that air you’re breathing or moving through. Right here’s a chart showing the relative barrier effectiveness for numerous materials:
Secondly, they work because they keep you from touching your face all day long. The masks makes you more self-conscious of the fact that you’re not supposed to touch your face- specifically, your mouth, nose, and eyes, and the areas round them- and for those who unintentionally do, you’ll contact the mask, not your skin directly.
Third, the expertise 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 latest Youtube video showing how some international locations have efficiently “flattened the curve” on new infections: “For those who take a look at all the nations which have flat curves, they are countries where 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 mask utilization to a 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.
If you nonetheless should be persuaded, take a look at this Chinese research of a neighborhood outbreak case on January 22 in the course of the peak Lunar New Year travel season. A sick particular person on the bus who did not interact with anyone spread the virus to 7 others, some of whom have been seated much more than 6 ft away. Two new passengers caught the virus half-hour 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 had been sitting on the bus.
So let’s say you’re convinced, and now you’re thinking of some kind of face covering. What are your options?
First, please don’t purchase masks commercially, if by some miracle you could discover them now. Commercially made PPE ought to be reserved for medical personnel at this time. Unfortunately, the shortage of commercially made PPE, and the lack of foresight that caused us to be in such a place of shortage, is probably why we initially bought this messaging of “Masks don’t work!” They do, people just didn’t need you to realize it for a while, to avoid a run on masks. Think of the empty shelves in supermarkets across America where rest room paper used to live, and also you understand why.
The best thing you can do to mask NOW are to use supplies around the house. Get creative; anything that covers the mouth and nose and stays in place will work.
While it’s finest if the mask suits well and there are no gaps between your face and the outside air, don’t quit on your homemade masks in the event you can’t achieve that. Any face covering will preserve you from touching the skin around your nose and mouth directly, which could grow to be an important mechanism by which masks block virus transmission. If you inadvertently touch your face while you’re wearing a mask, you’ll just contact the masks, not your skin.
You may attempt to form your face covering using pipe cleaners or opened-up rubber-coated paper clips within the half that goes over your nostril to make a tighter fit — experiment. The most important thing is that you simply wash your palms, put in your face covering, and go out of the house protected.