photo by: AP Photo / Rogelio V. Solis
A government study released on Wednesday, February 10, 2021, found that wearing two masks may be better than one to protect against coronavirus infections.
Amid concerns over the new strains of COVID-19 spreading across the United States, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention on Wednesday released additional clues and a new report on best practices for wearing masks.
According to the report, experiments conducted by the CDC showed that exposure to potentially infectious aerosols decreased by about 95% when two mannequins both wore well-fitted masks – by tying a mask from a medical procedure or by lay a cloth mask over a medical procedure. mask, also known as ‘double masking’.
Dr. Thomas Marcellino, Douglas County Health Officer, said strategies such as double-masking have increasingly come up in people.
“I think what has happened is that we are seeing these variants and that the distribution is easier, and so we are starting to think, ‘How can we handle this? “We can do better with masks,” Marcellino said in a telephone interview with Journal-World on Wednesday.
The Journal-World spoke separately with Marcellino and Dr Jennifer Schrimsher, a physician on infectious diseases at LMH Health, about the dual masking strategy. The two doctors agreed that although two masks, if worn correctly, would probably increase protection, the most important issue was that the general public should wear one mask correctly.
‘If you put up two fences or two layers of chicken, it’s more likely to be effective than one layer of chicken. “If you’re just trying to keep chickens out, you only need one layer,” Schrimsher said.
Marcellino said the current recommendation at Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health was that masks should have at least two coats, cover one’s nose and mouth completely, and fit snugly on your nose and face. He said more layers are likely to provide better protection against inhaled particles.
“It’s about finding a balance, really, of how you can breathe and function and still be protected from any pollution or virus,” he said.
Schrimsher also said it is important that masks breathe easily. If a mask has too many layers and is difficult to breathe through, people are likely to suck in air on the sides of the mask, which would frustrate the purpose of wearing one, she said.
“One mask with a few layers will probably be more beneficial to the wearer than trying to stack a bunch of masks and not breathing,” she said. “If we could get people to wear one mask the right way, we would be in a much better place.”
Of course, if someone wants to wear two masks, it will provide extra protection as long as the masks fit properly, Marcellino said. People at high risk for the virus can choose to double mask, as long as they can function safely and breathe well.
The two strategies used in the CDC’s recent study – double masking and button knotting and the overlining of a medical procedure mask – were both intended to create a tighter fit that provides more protection. The dual masking strategy that the CDC experiments specifically use has the wearing of a disposable mask under a cloth mask. The CDC’s experiments did not include other combinations of masks, such as cloth over cloth, medical procedure mask over medical procedure mask, or medical procedure mask over cloth.
photo by: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
An infographic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows how wearing a well-fitting mask can limit the spread of COVID-19.
But the CDC’s updated mask guidelines say that people should not wear two disposable masks or combine a KN95 mask with any other mask. The machines for disposable medical procedures are not designed to fit snugly, the guidance says, so wearing more than one will not improve it.
The CDC did not provide an explanation as to why people should not combine a KN95 mask with another type of mask, and not on a Journal-World question. According to the CDC’s website, a KN95 mask is a type of filter mask that is regularly manufactured in China and is similar to the N95 masks commonly used in the United States.
Marcellino and Schrimsher said that N95 masks filter on their own well and that wearing a second mask under an N95 mask will aggravate the seal of an N95 mask. But Marcellino also said that when he wears an N95 mask he usually wears another mask over it to protect it from getting dirty.
For instructions on how to tie and stop the overlaps of a medical procedure mask to improve the fit, the CDC linked to a YouTube video from UNC Health titled “Pro Tip to Tighten Your Earloop Mask let fit. ”
Marcellino said he thought the renewed attention to masks and their effectiveness were fueled by the varieties of COVID-19. Schrimsher said the variant from the UK, which is more transferable, is likely to be the dominant tension in the US by the end of March. She also said that at the moment it appears that there is a silence in COVID-19 cases.
“It feels like the calm before the storm again,” she said.
Should new COVID-19 variants steer the number of cases in Douglas County in the wrong direction, and should the hospital be overwhelmed, Marcellino said the Department of Health might have to recommend double masking.
“At present, there is no evidence that it is widely distributed,” Marcellino said of the UK COVID-19 variant. The variant was identified on February 3 in Kansas.
‘It has the potential to become more prominent, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid. That’s why mask use is important, because we have to assume that it can be here, ”Marcellino said.
More information from the CDC on how to make your mask fit better:
The CDC’s updated mask guidelines provide additional information on how to improve a mask’s fit for better protection.
The CDC contains two important ways to ensure that a mask fits properly. First, make sure that it fits snugly on your face and that there are no gaps around the nose, side or neck, which can cause air with breathing drops to leak in and out around the edges. Second, choose a mask with different layers to keep your own breathing drops and others’ drops out.
Here are more tips from the CDC:
• Choose a mask with a nose wire.
• Use a mask decorator.
• If your cloth mask no longer has layers, you can add another layer of protection by wearing a disposable mask under the cloth mask.
• Knot and sew the earmuffs of a medical mask.