CLARITY — Masks Reduce Your Chance Of Getting And Giving Coronavirus
By: Walter Adamson
Tags: Coronavirus, Masks, Community Spread, Infection, Covid 19

CLARITY — Masks Reduce Your Chance Of Getting And Giving Coronavirus

The facts are unambiguous, and you can make your own mask

Image Credit: NHK World video screenshot.

The WHO does not recommend the mass use of face masks.

recommend the mass use of face masks. The Austrian Government has just required all shoppers to wear them.

to wear them. The US CDC does not recommend the mass use of face masks.

recommend the mass use of face masks. China experts say that the “big mistake” in the US and Europe is that people aren’t wearing masks.

Confused?

Let me help you:

​

Medical staff wear masks because they reduce the chance of airborne transmission of infection from the patients to the carer.

Let’s unpack that sentence together:

Medical staff wear masks because they reduce the chance of airborne infection. Masks reduce the chance of infection.

If it was not as crystal clear as that then medical staff would not be wearing them.

UPDATE April 4th: News study just out — the culmination of 5 years work. Nature just published new research showing face masks are effective against coronavirus, even reducing virus detection in aerosols in patients with coronavirus infections. Read on

The issue is about community spread

OK, so you may have an objection about the present moment — that there are not enough masks. Sure, and that’s nothing to do with what masks are for, that is simply logistics.

It is also not the reasoning behind the position taken by the WHO. Don’t confuse the two issues.

Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme — noted the global shortage of masks and said they must be a priority for frontline health workers. But he said this is not the primary reason for the WHO’s position on the use of masks. March 31, 2020.

Clearly, where there is a shortage then masks must be distributed in priority order. That’s not the issue about the mass use of masks.

The issue is one about one thing — community spread.

WHO and the US CDC believe that mass use of masks will not reduce community spread. Austria thinks they will, and China says that this is a fundamental requirement to limit community spread.

Cultural cringe is partly to blame

Most people in the West view “community spread” as managing the risk of them getting the virus. People in the East regard community spread as them managing their obligation not to give the virus to their family, friends and the community.

In China, not wearing masks in the current health crisis is seen as unhygienic, irresponsible, and even transgressive. Punitive measures are taken by authorities, with non-mask-wearers publicly shamed and humiliated on Chinese social media.

In the West, masks have been widely viewed with suspicion. The official advice from Australian health authorities is if you are not sick, don’t wear masks.

Masks limit community spread better than the current non-mask guidelines

Medical personnel don’t want to inhale an airborne virus from a patient. This is managing the risk of getting the infection. It works. That’s why they do it.

Surgical face masks were originally introduced to protect patients from wound infection and contamination from surgeons (the wearer) during surgical procedures, and were later adopted to protect healthcare workers against acquiring infection from their patients.

The big myth of the community spread guidelines is that standing 1.5m from another person is as effective risk management as wearing a mask.

The behaviour of microdroplets makes 1.5m ineffective

When we speak there are masses of water droplets spraying from our mouth in a vapour. That 1.5m distance is based on early observations that the droplets in the vapour fall to the ground quickly — within 1m.

The big droplets do fall to the ground quickly.

Image Credit: NHK World video screenshot.

But researchers in Japan have recently discovered that there are two types of droplets — macrodroplets and microdroplets.

The microdroplets float for a long distance and stay active for up to three hours — and each one carries a heavy load of the virus.

If someone talks loudly and you are standing 1.5m away you will be showered in microdroplets. The Japanese scientists mapped the microdroplets with lasers, and this phenomenon is very clear to see.

If the air is moving just very slightly towards you, you will be showered in microdroplets. When you breathe in, you will breathe the microdroplets and their viral passengers down into your mouth and throat.

Social distancing guidelines are a 2nd best option

Current social distancing guidelines are a second-best option which — at 1.5m — do not account for the unpredictable trajectory and lifetime of microdroplets.

It’s conclusive. If you wish to protect yourself from a second-party carrier, then wearing a mask improves your odds.

And, if you are inclined to do the right thing by your family, friends and the community in which you live, a mask will reduce your chance of infecting them.

Is that obvious, or does anyone not believe that having a mask over your mouth will greatly reduce, if not prevent, the ejection of sprays of an airborne virus as you speak?

This virus is transmitted by droplets and close contact. Droplets play a very important role — you’ve got to wear a mask, because when you speak, there are always droplets coming out of your mouth. Many people have asymptomatic or presymptomatic infections. If they are wearing face masks, it can prevent droplets that carry the virus from escaping and infecting others,” — George Gao, director-general of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

China very successfully controlled the spread of the coronavirus by a decisive range of measures which include the compulsory wearing of masks. Wearing masks is not a magic solution, but it adds to the overall effectiveness of a coordinated range of interventions.

The interventions implemented throughout China include complete lockdown of cities, active case surveillance, rapid investments in increased testing capacity, isolation of cases, treatment of severe cases, quarantine of cases and high-risk groups, and behavioural risk-reduction strategies, such as the compulsory use of masks in the general population — The Lancet, April 2, 2020.

Summary — we should all be wearing masks

To sum up the evidence, it is that:

Masks significantly reduce your risk of getting coronavirus from someone else — “greatly reduce” even applies if they are standing at 1.5m from you. ​Masks significantly reduce the risk that you will spread the coronavirus from you to other people.

Is there anything unclear about that?

We should all be wearing masks when outside. This especially applies when going shopping and to places where the breath of others is likely to float in the air.

The current guidelines from the WHO and CDC will inevitably be altered:

To recommend the mass use of face masks; or

To change the social distancing specifications e.g. more distance as a minimum; and

Include advice on where to stand, sit and otherwise minimise the infection risk from microdroplets;

Or, all of the above.

Not convinced yet, check the stats

If you are not yet convinced, then compare the coronavirus trajectories between countries that enforce the mass wearing of masks with those that do not.

Get the picture? The stats don’t lie.

​In the meantime, with masks facing critical supply shortages, this video from Japan [From “How to Craft Safety”] shows you how to make a relatively effective mask at home.

​It’s a lot better than having no cover.

Let’s flatten this curve together and send it down. Wear masks when you can.

Good luck.