Anonymous wrote:
I would agree with Darren to this extent: the surgical mask does not provide anything like 100% protection for yourself – better masks and suits are needed for that. Social (ie physical) distancing and hygiene are the most important forms of self-protection. But if you must go out, ie to buy food, using a mask will help reduce the risk of spreading the virus.
This post ended up longer than intended, if you want the short entertaining version, just watch this video, wash your hands A LOT, and don't wear a mask.
If we want to slow down the spread of coronavirus is important to understand how it spreads and what works to slow the spread. I think most folks don't understand how masks and gloves work, why they work in hospitals and why having the general public wear them is not a good idea.
Masks and gloves are useful if you have to be within a metre of other people and have a large supply of them that you can change often. They are a temporary barrier, if they are used for an extended period of time they become a source of contamination. It takes time to become accustomed to wearing a mask and it takes a lot of discipline to use it correctly. There are lots of ways that a mask can make things worse. Here in BC we have organised COVID-19 patients to discrete care sites. One of the reasons is so that healthcare personal can keep their protective gear on for longer, because each time you remove or adjust protective gear you are at increased risk of getting the virus. Getting your hands near your face is one of the worst things you can do. Doctors and nurses practice a regime of donning and removing protective gear that helps minimise this risk. However, here and in many other places they are now breaking one of the fundamental rules about protective gear. Protective gear should be changed often, however here and in much of the world healthcare workers now have to leave it on for longer because they are having to ration it. The proper way to use the gear is to scrub up outside a patients room, don the protective gear (gloves and mask or more), examine the patient, leave the room, remove gloves, remove mask with hands that just come from the inside of clean gloves, scrub everything again anyway.
Meanwhile, if you go into public you'll see folks pull a mask down to their chin to talk or have break breathing more easily, you'll see them regularly adjust their mask with contaminated hands, people will remove and then reuse mask, ........ the list is very long of the errors being made. Once you touch your mask with contaminated hands, the mask is a pretty good environment to harbour the virus and help spread it to your susceptible mucous tissues. I see many people using their hands to repeatedly pull their collar up over their mouth when it falls down. This is insane, your hands are the dirty contaminated part and now you have just transferred what's on them to the scarf to be repeatedly rubbed into your nose and mouth.
All of this is not necessary because the main mode of spread of coronavirus is your hands and people grossly underestimate how contaminated their hands are, how often they touch their hands to their eyes, mouth and nose. If you think you wash your hands enough and don't touch your face you're wrong. I know we don't like to hear this in and age when we are all special flowers and Amazon brings us whatever we want the next day, but you don't wash your hands well enough and you touch your face way more often than you think. I challenge you to record a video of yourself doing some work, something like reading, typing at the computer etc. You will touch your face and not even be aware of it. Even now people don't wash their hands well enough. They use too little soap, don't wash them for long enough, don't wash far enough up their wrists, or touch something that is contaminated right after washing their hands. If you wash your hands, but don't sanitise your phone immediately afterwards you may as well have not washed your hands. Same for your car keys, etc. For those of you that don't want to record yourselves, watch this video. Unfortunately, it is no different with adults than it is with kids. Imagine if you put the glow powder on the hands of a grocery clerk doing stocking, before he left his house.
Rather than wearing a mask, deal with contaminated surfaces and hands, this is where you are going to get coronavirus unless you're unlucky enough to have someone sneezing right in your face. For those rare times you have to go out for groceries etc. Keep your hands in your pockets. Don't touch any public surfaces that you don't have to. If you do touch a surface clean your hands as soon as possible, the clock is ticking and you will touch your face unconsciously. Almost all of your groceries could have corona on them. You wash your fruits and vegetables so they're fine. I wipe down every bag, jug, bottle etc. with a soapy cloth or a sterilizing wipe if I can't get soapy water. If you get a package, let it sit for a day or two before tearing it open, the virus doesn't live that long on most surface.
Wearing a mask provides a false sense of security, it makes you more likely to touch your face, which is a far greater risk than airborne corona, there is a worlwide shortage of high quality masks. If you have high quality masks bring them to a nearby hospital after calling ahead to find the best way to deliver them. This week New York city went searching worldwide to try and find masks for their medical personnel.
Masks make people feel better. Politicians live in fear of people not feeling better, otherwise the cry to stop wearing masks would be even louder.