Are you wearing the right mask?

[bennevisplace]

It's easy to get vaccine-happy and forget that everyday situations can still put you in danger.

In light of new, more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2, what kinds of mask should we be wearing, and where?

Austria, like the UK into its third national lockdown, is now making FFP2 /N95 masks mandatory in indoor public spaces and is sending out free packs of these masks to all residents aged over 65. Other countries are banning cloth masks, while in the UK "anything that goes over mouth and nose" is deemed acceptable - for now.

bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n432

This article in Nature, October 2020, supports the utility of face masks even though the data are messy https//nature.com/articles/d41586-...

[carnvellan]

Getting good advice on the best mask to wear has been a weakness of health service advice all year. As it looks likely that we shall be socially mixing much more in 2021, good practical advice is needed. The BMJ article sums up the confused advice currently available from different countries and the WHO. I am none the wiser after reading it. Can any of CLL Support's experts help out here?

[bennevisplace in reply to carnvellan]

I think you're right, advice on masking is confusing with different messages coming from different sources. Always there is a political element to government sources, and one has to bear in mind the cost/ availability versus perceived benefit which varies a lot according to local conditions. Current LA versus Sydney for example.

What is clear to me is that western governments have consistently played dumb when it comes to face masks. They were slow to give them any credence outside a medical setting, costing many thousands of lives and many billions in GDP. And even now you have most hospital staff (other than in Covid wards) having to work a shift wearing flimsy "surgical" masks that don't reliably stop aerosol transmission, hence vulnerable patients' reluctance to attend hospital. Other workplaces expect employees to share the same airspace for 8 hours.... Where are the N95 respirators?

As for most cloth masks, well, don't they come in pretty patterns? And latest fashion look is to wear one as a chin guard.

The article is timely, but as usual government messaging weaker than distilled water.

[bennevisplace in reply to carnvellan]

I edited the post to add a link to an article in Nature, informative and non technical.