Question: Regarding the coronavirus, what’s with the face masks? They say on the news we don’t need them but everyone I know is trying to get them.
Answer: Face masks should be worn by people who are sick — coughing and sneezing — to reduce the risk they will infect others, and they should be worn by healthy people caring for those sick people, whether the caregivers are healthcare professionals in a hospital or other clinical setting or family members at home. Otherwise, experts do not recommend that healthy people wear face masks to ward off respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19, a new strain of coronavirus that has sparked a global run on face masks as it spreads from China around the world.
“You should only wear a mask if a health-care professional recommends it,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says on its coronavirus webpage, reachable from cdc.gov/.
To be clear, a sick person wearing a mask should not be out in the community except under limited circumstances; they should have sought medical care and either be at home recovering or, in severe cases, in the hospital. They should stay home from work, school and other activities.
That’s one of the downsides of masks; mildly ill people may rely on them as a panacea and continue their normal routines. That’s a mistake; as long as a person is contagious with any respiratory illness, they should keep their distance from the general public and do what they can to protect the people they can’t avoid, including by wearing a properly fitted protective mask.
LIKEWISE, healthy people may over-rely on masks as a barrier to illness and neglect a proven way to thwart infection, namely by exercising excellent personal and institutional hygiene. By now we all should know that this includes covering one’s cough or sneeze; frequently washing hands with soap and water; avoiding touching one’s face; limiting contact with ill people; and regularly disinfecting counter tops, door handles, toilet handles, stairway railings and other shared touch points, whether at homes, schools, workplaces, churches, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, or other institutions.
International, national and state health officials’ insistence that masks are not effective for general exposure prevention — meaning that healthy people don’t need to wear them (with the aforementioned exceptions) — makes sense when you think about how this new coronavirus apparently spreads. A detailed explanation can be found in the Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), at 808ne.ws/whocovid. WHO stands for the World Health Organization.
The report explains that COVID-19 “is transmitted via droplets and fomites during close unprotected contact between an infector and infectee.” Droplets may be expelled when an infected person coughs or sneezes. Fomites are objects or material that may carry infection, such as eating utensils.
Environmental contamination among people in confined spaces is considered a major driver of transmission; airborne spread is not. COVID-19 respiratory droplets fall to the ground within a few feet, unlike more highly contagious airborne pathogens like measles, which can travel 100 feet through the air. All this helps explain why WHO emphasizes “social distancing” to deter COVID-19’s spread, rather than focusing on face masks as the main remedy.
WHO’S REPORT urges people worldwide to:
>> Rigorously practice the most important preventive measures, which are frequent hand washing and always covering your mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing.
>> Adopt stringent “social distancing” practices and help the high-risk elderly population. “Social distancing” means not gathering in large, close groups.
The vast majority of people infected worldwide will recover, the report says; however, for the severely afflicted, the death rate is higher than the flu.
Closer to home, the state Department of Health posts daily updates about Hawaii’s evolving situation, and also shares the information in an email blast that anyone can sign up for, at bit.ly/ 2TqyAoQ.
It’s essential to rely on accurate, up-to-date information, lest panic buying or hoarding of face masks by healthy people lead to shortages among sick people, healthcare workers and other caregivers who need them.
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