Facemasks…
The current trend in social media now turns to the debate as to whether the public should be wearing facemasks. Healthcare should be based on hard evidence, and guidelines applied whenever their origin is factual. To start imposing guidelines to our population based on gut-based feelings is grossly irresponsible.
Not all facemasks are created equal, and though there is a fair amount of information on social media on this topic. The most secure facemasks should be delivered to healthcare workers, and hospital employees. Since there is an inherent risk to hospital workers, their families should also receive high quality facemasks as well it is just common sense.
Facemasks that are not properly tested or anything else below N-95 should not be on the streets in the general population and less in hospitals. Doing otherwise is creating a false believe of health in a scared population. In addition, the contamination of useless facemasks will inevitably bring more viruses and bacteria, since we are providing a new vehicle of transportation to water and landfills.
Improper use of the strings or not making an adequate seal with the metal buckle of highly designed facemasks can also limit the effectiveness of each, and the people can be infected as well. Sterilizing facemasks on your own microwave, or other equipment will inevitably invalidate the barrier protection because of the radiation your flora is receiving and that of the environment in which the masked is used.
The use of cloth-facemask is the equivalent of covering your nares and mouth with you elbow, and rebreathing the endogenous flora repeatedly. At least communicates to the community that you care enough that you are willing to cover your face, even if you are not with allergies, and this brings a sense of confidence, that the adaptation phase of this stimulus (our pandemic) is working. When designing an appropriate facemask make sure there is enough protection in layers, and that is washable.
The secure way for our population is to bridge our social distancing tool and break the chains of transmission while a vaccine is developed and the natural selection process kicks in. In plain terms, patient’s survivals can be used to donate their blood for the manufacture of a vaccine. The process will repeat itself just as with the influenza.
We are inevitably at the beginning of a long curve, that will approximate 3 years, or until the WHO declares the pandemic to be over. We will have to adapt to be vaccinated once a year, for a new strain of the virus, once it starts the mutation process and we have developed a herd immunity. Government officials are not concentrating communication in this aspect, but those of us that like to see the whole picture for itself, need to prepare for what is to come and how do we adapt ourselves to survive in society which is in itself complex.
References:
Chughtai AA, Seale H, Rawlinson WD, Kunasekaran M, Macintyre CR. Selection and Use of Respiratory Protection by Healthcare Workers to Protect from Infectious Diseases in Hospital Settings [published online ahead of print, 2020 Mar 7]. Ann Work Expo Health. 2020;wxaa020. doi:10.1093/annweh/wxaa020
Li Y, Guo YP, Wong KC, Chung WY, Gohel MD, Leung HM. Transmission of communicable respiratory infections and facemasks. J Multidiscip Healthc. 2008;1:17–27. Published 2008 May 1. doi:10.2147/jmdh.s3019
Shakya KM, Noyes A, Kallin R, Peltier RE. Evaluating the efficacy of cloth facemasks in reducing particulate matter exposure. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol. 2017;27(3):352–357. doi:10.1038/jes.2016.42