Why we should all consider wearing masks

“Now we’ve learned about this disease — and we’ve always said we’re going to learn more, we’re going to adjust — and we’ve learned there’s a fair amount of asymptomatic spread and so we’ve asked the CDC to take another look at whether or not having more people wear masks will prevent transmission of the disease to other people”

As mentioned below, there is science indicating that wearing a mask can decrease the odds of transmitting a disease. 

I think there are a couple of major concerns that will need to be addressed in order for this to happen.

First, we need to make sure that medical professionals have adequate supplies before we start arming the public with them. We are only talking about surgical masks here and not N95 masks, and I don’t think there will be a massive shortage of surgical masks very soon given how so many are being produced right now.

Experts are also concerned that wearing masks could give the public a false sense of confidence. For example, people might reduce social distancing if they feel like they can get close to others by wearing a mask.

There’s also a fear that some people will touch their masks more and spread anything found on the outside of the mask on to their face or hands. (Many believe that the biggest risk to health care providers in spreading contamination is when they are taking gear/PPE off.)

And finally, some people feel like recommending or advising for the public to wear masks could add to the hysteria that people already feel. The country might feel more “sick” or oppressed and this could result in lower morale, people acting out, etc.

Personally, I am in favor of issuing out masks to be worn by the public.

I also think having hand sanitizer readily available at these venues will be really important as well. You could imagine seeing hand sanitizer stations at every aisle at a stadium, for example. Or maybe they just issue spectators small packets when they enter the stadium.

Basically, until a vaccine is readily available, the only way I see us being able to return to anything close to normalcy when it comes to large public gatherings is to have some type of added measures to reduce the odds of spreading in mass clusters.

I think masks plus accessible hand sanitizer is the easiest way to do this, though other steps like scanning for temperature could be implemented as well. (GPS tracking would be highly effective but I feel like that is too much infringement on us and that would cause all kinds of backlash so I think that is off the table.)

We will see how things evolve over the next few days to weeks. But I have a feeling that as long as it does not pose an issue to the healthcare industry, masks will be recommended and possibly even issued out in many places.

H/T

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Original article:

Some experts are now thinking that some Americans should start wearing masks in their daily activities in order to curb the transmission of disease.

Initially, most experts and organizations like the WHO and CDC were telling the public that wearing a mask is not effective at preventing yourself from being infected from an airborne disease. They were mostly talking about standard surgical masks (not N95 respirators which are highly effective at filtering out viruses).

The biggest reason these surgical face masks are not highly effective at preventing you from getting a disease is because there are gaps on the sides of the mask that allow particles to get inside and make their way through your mouth and nose.

These masks are good at keeping you from spreading your own contagious particles from your nose and mouth though.

That’s why there has been a focus on sick folks wearing the masks and not the general public.

But now, according to Yahoo News, some are actually advocating for some healthy Americans to wear masks to prevent infection, “especially those with essential jobs who cannot avoid public transportation or close interaction with others.”

Dr. Robert Atmar, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine stated that “[w]hile wearing a mask may not necessarily prevent healthy people from getting sick, and it certainly doesn’t replace important measures such as hand-washing or social distancing, it may be better than nothing.”

There is science backing up the effectiveness of wearing masks to prevent transmission of similar diseases like SARS.

When researchers conducted a review of the SARS outbreak in 2003, they discovered some revealing information about preventing disease.

They found that washing your hands more than 10 times a day was 55% effective at stopping transmission and that wearing a mask was 68% effective. And if you did these two things together and also wear gloves, you would be 91% effective at reducing transmission.

So basically a mask is better than no mask but it’s not a guarantee that you won’t inhale harmful virus particles.

Personally, I would not be surprised if wearing masks becomes a popular thing to do in the next six months, especially when traveling in public spaces. 

Once we start opening up tourist attractions and stadiums, I think it could be very helpful to issue out masks to people so that their germs and viruses do not easily get out into the air.

Remember, there are studies like the one in Iceland that show that around 50% of carriers do not exhibit symptoms. Also, they have found out that people can be highly contagious several days before they become symptomatic.

So when things open back up, you will have many people carrying the virus who are not showing any signs of sickness and that is why I think masks would be a good idea to implement on a widespread basis.

I’m sure a lot of people would be opposed to this but it would only be a temporary measure until we make more progress with the vaccine. 

I’m no doctor, but I think if we implemented screening for temperatures and issued out masks that must be worn and had hand sanitizer readily available then we could lessen social distancing (when the time is right), similar to what they are doing in China.

I’m not advocating for anyone to go out and buy masks right now. There is such a shortage on supplies that there is no reason for individuals to become an extra burden on the medical system.

But it would not surprise me if our country has a huge surplus of these masks when things start to die down and if many tourist attractions and large venues decide to issue those out.

It sounds a bit crazy because it has never happened before but neither has a virus like this in modern time. Our country has a weird stigma about wearing these masks but it might be time to break down that stigma if we want to smartly begin to erode social distancing. If it works, then why not give it a try?

H/T