With omicron, you need a mask that means business

[Lavinia-Blue]

"With another coronavirus variant racing across the U.S., once again health authorities are urging people to mask up indoors. Yes, you've heard it all before. But given how contagious omicron is, experts say, it's seriously time to upgrade to an N95 or similar high-filtration respirator when you're in public indoor spaces.

"Cloth masks are not going to cut it with omicron," says Linsey Marr, a researcher at Virginia Tech who studies how viruses transmit in the air.

Omicron is so much more transmissible than coronavirus variants that have come before it. It spreads at least three times faster than delta. One person is infecting at least three others at a time on average, based on data from other countries. "

npr.org/sections/health-sho...

[Jm954 Administrator]

I completely agree and I'm now wear my FFP3's all the time in shops and places where there are possibly crowds. Now that my shopping is finished, I'm staying home though

Jackie

[lankisterguy Volunteer]

I've been wearing my N95s for the entire pandemic, but this week I got my full face shields out again. -

I usually go to our big chain grocery store at 7:00am when normally there are very few shoppers , but yesterday (the day before Christmas Eve) the place was packed shoulder to shoulder, so I was glad I had the face shield and the N95 to protect me.

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When I saw that everyone else was wearing masks, I used the N95 without the exhaust valve to also protect others. It's not as comfortable, but I can handle the discomfort to contribute when everyone else is serious about masking.

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Len

[neurodervish in reply to lankisterguy]

Good for you Len! I haven't even gone inside a store (doing curb-side pickups only), but am wearing the N95 valved mask with a surgical mask outside it + face shield just to stand 15 feet away from anyone.

I'm operating under the rule of "It's Not Whether You Were Exposed to the Virus. It's How Much." (aka "The dose makes the poison")

nytimes.com/2020/05/29/heal...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/res...

We haven't discussed viral loads for a while, but given omicron's transmissibility, perhaps we should.

[LeoPa]

Totally agree. N95 for me and N99 to hospital or shops. Always wearing glasses too. If they get foggy I know they don't fit well