The New York Instances and Washington Post have now come around to a position I advocated for here on Medium last week: We should all be wearing masks. Not just health care workers, but ALL of us. Every time we exit in public.
Why?
Because they work.
Analysis from the SARS outbreak in 2003 shows that washing palms 10+ instances daily was fifty five% effective in stopping virus transmission; wearing a masks was truly more effective, reducing transmission by about 68%.
Combining a number of forms of protection — hand washing, mask wearing, gloves, and one other layer of outerwear (gowning) — was 91% effective.
Read that once more: 91% effective 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'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 supplies:

Secondly, they work because they preserve 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, nostril, and eyes, and the areas round them- and should you by chance do, you’ll touch the masks, not your skin directly.
Third, the expertise of other international locations who mask 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 nations have efficiently "flattened the curve" on new infections: "For those who have a look at all of the international locations which have flat curves, they're 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 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.


Should you still must be persuaded, take a look at this Chinese examine of a neighborhood outbreak case on January 22 through the peak Lunar New Year journey season. A sick individual on the bus who didn't interact with anybody 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 unique 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 the place people have 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 buy masks commercially, if by some miracle you possibly can discover them now. Commercially made PPE must 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 position of shortage, is probably why we initially received this messaging of "Masks don’t work!" They do, folks just didn’t need you to understand it for a while, to keep away from a run on masks. Think of the empty cabinets in supermarkets across America the place rest room paper used to live, and you perceive why.
The easiest thing you can do to masks NOW are to use supplies across the house. Get inventive; anything that covers the mouth and nostril and stays in place will work.

While it’s best if the mask matches well and there are no gaps between your face and the outside air, don’t surrender on your homemade masks in case you can’t achieve that. Any face covering will keep you from touching the skin around your nose and mouth directly, which may turn into an important mechanism by which masks block virus transmission. In the event you inadvertently touch your face while you’re wearing a masks, you’ll just touch the mask, not your skin.
You may try to shape your face covering using pipe cleaners or opened-up rubber-coated paper clips in the half that goes over your nose to make a tighter match — experiment. An important thing is that you just wash your hands, put on your face covering, and exit of the house protected.

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