With more contagious variants of the coronavirus spread and vaccination for many Americans still months away, experts agree that it’s time to think better about how well your face masks protect you.
It could mean double masking or upgrading to an N95 respirator, the gold standard used by healthcare professionals in particularly risky situations, experts told BuzzFeed News. And while the best way to mask depends on individual circumstances, it’s clear that a bad, thin layer of cloth just does not cut it.
“It’s just a nuanced conversation like, ‘Is it a little better, or is it a little better?’ ‘, Said Alex Huffman, an aerosol scientist at the University of Denver in Colorado. ‘It’s really about quality on the one hand and on the other, and [how] they come together. ”
How should you double mask? When? Is a cloth mask still effective?
“The philosophy that one mask is good, two masks are better, is probably true,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said. “I prefer someone to wear one mask properly than two masks improperly, but if you can wear two masks properly, it’s great.”
BuzzFeed News visited eight doctors and scientists on how we can better protect ourselves and others now. Here is their advice.
Whatever you wear, make sure it fits your face well.
Whether you are doubling up, wearing an N95 or just putting on your favorite dust mask, the most important thing to do is make sure you wear it properly. According to CDC, masks should cover your nose and mouth and be as tight as possible to your face.
“It should fit snugly around the mask so that there are no gaps where air and viruses can easily pass through,” Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech, wrote in a statement. to BuzzFeed News. “Having a gap is like having a hole in the mask.”
In an article published earlier this month, Marr, an expert in airborne virus transmission, recommends wearing a cloth mask on top of a surgical mask as one way to reduce leaks. Some engineers have also developed wires that help seal masks on the wearer’s face.
“It forces the air to pass through the material” rather than licking the sides or around your nose, Huffman said.
Before you leave, check that your air is coming out at the sides of the mask or around your nose, and try to adjust the nose wire and the straps so as to make them as tight as possible.
Who should double?
Dr Monica Gandhi, who co-authored the article with Marr, recommends that people at risk of serious illnesses work indoors around other people or live in areas where COVID-19 transmission is high, wearing a cloth mask. on a surgery one or place a filter between two cloth layers.
The idea was considered common sense by dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases. However, the CDC did not make a recommendation on double masking and did not respond to questions from BuzzFeed News.
Gandhi, an infectious disease doctor and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said people should not double down if they are just going for a walk in an area where they can still keep their distance from others. Double masking is more important indoors and in places where it is difficult to distance, she added.
Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at UCSF, said he prefers to wear the cloth mask, or whatever layer is underneath, and says he finds it easier to create such a seal on his face. (This reporter personally tried it both ways and did not find too much difference.) “This is what works for the wearer,” Rutherford said.
Some experts said that it is probably good to wear two cloth masks – as long as you can breathe easily and fit close to your face – they said that it is probably not worth wearing three or more masks at once .
“It just muffles your voice and it adds no extra efficiency,” Gandhi said.
Carolyn Cole / Getty Images
Daniel Fire, Capt. Houston Soto, wears an N95 face mask when responding to a call during a pandemic.
I have N95s. Where should I wear it?
Although there is still an insufficient supply of N95s, the gold standard for protection, substitutes such as KN95s are more available to the general public than they were months ago. If you have access to it, experts have recommended wearing it in indoor spaces where you mingle with strangers, such as in the grocery store and in public transportation.
“The extent of the surge was greater and that means the possibility that the person standing next to you in the queue is an infection is greater,” said Bob Wachter, chairman of UCSF’s Department of Medicine.
Some experts are now advocating universal N95 use, and some European countries have begun requiring medical-grade face masks in grocery stores and public transportation, although the CDC still says N95s and surgical masks should be reserved for health care workers.
Although the daily number of cases decreases from the increases seen during the holiday season, the spread of more contagious variants makes all activities outside your home riskier than ever before. “The hierarchy here is surgically better than cloth, and N95 is better than surgical,” Wachter said.
This does not mean that you should worry about going to the store or other indoor spaces with strangers when you and others are only wearing cloth masks, according to Benjamin.
“Even if you properly wear even a sufficiently thick cloth mask, your risk should be reduced and at the end of the day, this whole exercise and exercise is about reducing the risk,” Benjamin said. “For the average person who does most of the average things we do, I still believe it should be enough to wear a good cloth mask of more than two layers.”
Will my cloth mask protect me from the new coronavirus variants?
Experts said the variants did not have superpowers to penetrate masks better than the older versions of the virus. But if they do get through, it’s likely that a person will get sick.
“It’s not so much that the mask is less effective at stopping particles, but that the variants of the virus can transmit a little more efficiently,” Huffman said. “The mask does its job and still does it in exactly the same way it was.”
There is still a lot we do not know about the variants or what makes them more contagious. It could be that they are better able to enter cells, or that they deliver higher virus load, which means that when an infected person speaks or coughs, they spit out more viral particles.
‘What they do have is the ability to utilize any form of decay in the way you wear the masks, so if you have a thin mask or if you have a mask that you do not wear so well … it’s going to be less forgiving if you’re dealing with a new variant, ‘said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety.
Ira L. Black – Corbis / Getty Images
A mannequin in a shop window wears a fashionable scarf as a face mask.
If you’ve still wearing a bandana or a single layer cloth mask, it’s time to upgrade.
Because more infectious versions of the virus are spreading, experts agree that it is worthwhile for people to upgrade their masks.
“People should not wear bandana masks at all,” Benjamin said. “The coverage will definitely reduce your risk to some extent, but it’s really inadequate.”
Rosie Redfield, a microbiologist and professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia, recommends that people check their current masks for leaks and determine how well they filter the air they filter through.
‘Do you feel hot air running out of your cheeks and eyes as you exhale? When you are outside, do you dim your glasses? Does it become more difficult to breathe if you use the sides of your hands to press the mask edges tightly against your face? “Yes, these questions mean that your mask is leaking,” Redfield told BuzzFeed News in an email.
It may help to put on the straps or change the shape of the nose wire, but you might just need to try a new mask, she said. To test how well your mask filters air, Redfield said to see how hard it is to blow air through it when it is pressed against your mouth.
“If it’s almost as easy as without the mask, the mask is not a good filter,” she said. “If it’s very difficult to blow air through the mask, the mask may be too tight to filter it, making it more likely that air is forced to pass rather than pass through.”
Experts recommend getting several washable, multilayer cloth masks with a filter or a filter bag. Gandhi said that you can also sew a filter or vacuum bag between two layers of material.
“If you wear a single coat, especially if you have not been vaccinated, I will personally go for the mask or improve the quality of the mask, whichever is best,” Wachter said.
Until more people are vaccinated, continue to wear and avoid masks, and avoid them indoors.
Of course, masks are just one way to reduce your risk of transmission and spread of COVID-19, and everyone should continue to distance themselves, avoid crowds, limit time indoors with people outside your household, and stay at home as much as possible. .
The message has been highlighted by public health officials since the start of the pandemic, and although it has sparked fighting in some states, President Joe Biden has said he is depoliticizing security measures such as masking.
Adalja said more than a year after the outbreak of the coronavirus that everyone should be “much more careful” about the precautions they take when they are outside their homes, and if you are eligible to get the vaccine, go get it .
‘Whatever it is, try to do a little better work with the masking and all the different prevention steps you and we have taken to get everyone past the finish line where enough people have been vaccinated to pay less attention to these things, Said Huffman.