The New York Instances and Washington Post have now come round to a place I advocated for here on Medium final week: We must always all be wearing masks. Not just health care workers, but ALL of us. Every time we exit in public.
Why?
Because they work.
Research from the SARS outbreak in 2003 shows that washing hands 10+ times daily was 55% efficient in stopping virus transmission; wearing a masks was truly more effective, reducing transmission by about sixty eight%.
Combining multiple types of protection — hand washing, masks wearing, gloves, and another layer of outerwear (gowning) — was 91% effective.
Read that again: 91% efficient at stopping virus transmission.
COVID-19 and SARS are related types of viruses (coronaviruses), and it is sensible that what works to stop transmission for one will work to stop 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. 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 masks 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 around them- and for those who accidentally do, you’ll touch the mask, not your skin directly.
Third, the expertise of different nations who mask show that masks work in the real world. Within the words of Jeremy Howard, researcher and Masks4All activist, explaining a chart in his recent Youtube video showing how some countries have successfully “flattened the curve” on new infections: “If you happen to look at all the countries which have flat curves, they are international locations the place masks-wearing is extraordinarily regular, and NOT wearing a masks in places like public transport can be considered anti-social.” He notes that the Czech Republic went from zero masks usage to a hundred% in 10 days, and in the process they halted the growth of new covid-19 cases. The Czechs made their own masks- the government didn’t give them out.
If you happen to still need to be persuaded, take a look at this Chinese study of a local outbreak case on January 22 throughout the peak Lunar New Year journey season. A sick person on the bus who didn’t interact with anyone spread the virus to 7 others, a few of whom had been seated much more than 6 ft away. Two new passengers caught the virus half-hour after the unique 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 exactly the place individuals 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 find them now. Commercially made PPE needs to be reserved for medical personnel at this time. Sadly, the shortage 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 bought this messaging of “Masks don’t work!” They do, people just didn’t want you to know it for a while, to keep away from a run on masks. Think of the empty cabinets in supermarkets throughout America the place bathroom paper used to live, and also you perceive why.
The easiest thing you are able to do to masks NOW are to use materials across the house. Get artistic; anything that covers the mouth and nostril and stays in place will work.
While it’s best if the masks fits well and there are not any gaps between your face and the outside air, don’t surrender on your homemade mask if you can’t achieve that. Any face covering will keep you from touching the skin around your nostril and mouth directly, which may turn out to be crucial mechanism by which masks block virus transmission. For those who inadvertently contact your face while you’re wearing a mask, you’ll just touch the masks, not your skin.
You possibly can attempt to form your face covering utilizing pipe cleaners or opened-up rubber-coated paper clips in the half that goes over your nose to make a tighter match — experiment. A very powerful thing is that you simply wash your palms, put in your face covering, and go out of the house protected.
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