The New York Times and Washington Post have now come around to a place 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. Whenever we exit in public.
Why?
Because they work.
Research from the SARS outbreak in 2003 shows that washing palms 10+ times each day was fifty five% efficient in stopping virus transmission; wearing a masks was actually more effective, reducing transmission by about 68%.
Combining a number of forms of protection — hand washing, masks wearing, gloves, and another layer of outerwear (gowning) — was 91% effective.
Read that again: 91% effective at stopping virus transmission.
COVID-19 and SARS are similar types of viruses (coronaviruses), and it makes sense that what works to cease transmission for one will work to stop transmission of the other.
Masks work, first, because they are 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 numerous supplies:
Secondly, they work because they hold you from touching your face all day long. The masks makes you more self-aware of the truth that you’re not supposed to touch your face- specifically, your mouth, nostril, and eyes, and the areas round them- and when you accidentally do, you’ll contact the mask, 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 current 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 countries the place mask-wearing is extraordinarily regular, and NOT wearing a mask in places like public transport can be considered anti-social.” He notes that the Czech Republic went from zero masks 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.
When you nonetheless should be persuaded, take a look at this Chinese examine of a local outbreak case on January 22 through the peak Lunar New Year travel season. A sick individual on the bus who did not interact with anyone spread the virus to 7 others, some of whom had been seated a lot more than 6 ft away. Two new passengers caught the virus 30 minutes after the original sick individual had left the bus. NONE OF THE PEOPLE WEARING MASKS WERE INFECTED. Read the article, it’s very detailed, with a schematic of exactly where individuals had been sitting on the bus.
So let’s say you’re satisfied, and now you’re thinking of some type of face covering. What are your options?
First, please don’t buy masks commercially, if by some miracle you possibly can discover them now. Commercially made PPE needs to be reserved for medical personnel at this time. Unfortunately, the scarcity of commercially made PPE, and the shortage of foresight that caused us to be in such a place of shortage, is probably why we initially acquired this messaging of “Masks don’t work!” They do, folks 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 where toilet paper used to live, and also you perceive why.
The simplest thing you can do to masks NOW are to make use of supplies around the house. Get inventive; anything that covers the mouth and nostril and stays in place will work.
While it’s finest if the masks matches well and there are no gaps between your face and the outside air, don’t hand over in your homemade masks if you can’t achieve that. Any face covering will maintain you from touching the skin round your nostril and mouth directly, which may change into crucial mechanism by which masks block virus transmission. In the event you inadvertently touch your face while you’re wearing a mask, you’ll just touch the mask, not your skin.
You’ll be able to attempt to form your face covering utilizing pipe cleaners or opened-up rubber-coated paper clips within the part that goes over your nose to make a tighter match — experiment. A very powerful thing is that you simply wash your fingers, put in your face covering, and go out of the house protected.
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