The COVID-19 pandemic presents huge challenges. A newly emerged virus to which the world’s inhabitants has no immunity, coupled with the speedy movement of people throughout the globe, has set the stage for an outbreak of proportions not seen in the last century.
For an infection with this virus to happen, it must come into contact with the eyes, nose, or mouth. This happens when droplets produced by an contaminated person (through speaking, coughing or sneezing), land on the face of one other person. These infectious droplets can travel up to 6 ft, which is the reason to promote social distancing. Touching a surface that’s contaminated with infectious droplets and then touching one’s own eyes, nostril or mouth, is another way for infection to occur. Due to this fact, the key to avoiding infection is to have these areas of the face covered.
In hospitals, face masks and goggles are typically used to forestall publicity to infectious droplets. Nonetheless, face masks shortages are occurring because of interruptions in the supply chain, which is deeply rooted in China and disrupted by the pandemic. Some health care workers have been pressured to resort to scarves and bandannas in a final-ditch try to protect themselves while providing care. Even when plentiful, face masks are usually not without problems. Once they develop into wet from the humidity in exhaled air, they lose effectiveness. In addition, some people touch their face more typically to adjust the masks, which will increase the risk of an infection if the fingers are contaminated.
Fabric masks, although better than nothing, have been shown to be less protective than medical-grade face masks.
We consider that face shields provide a greater solution. There are lots of types, but all use clear plastic material hooked up to a headpiece to cover the eyes, nose and mouth, thereby stopping infectious droplets from contacting these areas the place the virus can enter the body. They cover more of the face than masks and forestall the wearer from touching their face. Importantly, face shields are durable, can be cleaned after use, reused repeatedly, and for many people are more comfortable than face masks. Because these shields are reusable and are diversified across the supply chains of multiple industries, the current supply is less limited than for face masks. They’ll even be made at home with gadgets from office supply and craft stores.
Every health care worker wants a face shield for protection at work. While face masks are nonetheless wanted in some conditions, implementation of face shields will tremendously reduce the need for face masks and extend the limited national supply of masks. Engineers have produced designs for face shields that are in the public domain, and fabrication at scale is comparatively simple. To ensure that each health care worker has a face shield, production might want to ramp up to meet the demand through present producers and recruitment of additional factories. Because the design is easy, large rapid production wouldn’t be difficult.
Once the health care workpressure is supplied, distribution to the general public ought to start, with a goal to provide a face shield to each particular person in the country. It should be worn anytime an individual leaves their residence, while in any public place, and even at work. Although shelter-at-house approaches are needed to “bend the curve” of this pandemic, the following societal disruption limits the time that political leaders are prepared to maintain such measures. Once each person is shielded, nevertheless, reducing restrictions on movement would carry less risk. Common shielding could reduce reliance on social distancing since infectious droplets can’t reach the face of vulnerable individuals. Handwashing, however, would remain essential to maintain folks from infecting themselves with virus found on the fingers after touching contaminated surfaces.