05-09-2020
04:25 PM
Two of the world's major health organisations disagree on mask wearing. The World Health Organisation (WHO) currently discourages mask use: There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent them from infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19. There are several possible routes to infection. An infected person can cough, sneeze or breathe while within about two metres of another person, and the virus lands in the other person's eyes, nose or mouth (1). Another route is when an infected person coughs or sneezes onto their hand or onto a surface. The uninfected person then shakes the hand (2a) or touches the surface (2b), and transfers the virus to their own eye, nose or mouth. It is possible that an infected person can also cough or sneeze to create an airborne spread (3) beyond the close contact range – but it is controversial whether this last route is a major means of transmission. We don't know how much transmission occurs by each of these routes for COVID-19. It's also unclear how much protection a mask would offer in each case. There are several possible reasons why masks don't offer significant protection. First, masks may not do much without eye protection. We know from animal and laboratory experiments that influenza or other coronaviruses can enter the eyes and travel to the nose and into the respiratory system. While standard and special masks provide incomplete protection, special masks combined with goggles appear to provide complete protection in laboratory experiments. However, there are no studies in real-world situations measuring the results of combined mask and eyewear. The apparent minimal impact of wearing masks might also be because people didn't use them properly. For example, one study found less than half of the participants wore them "most of the time". People may also wear masks inappropriately, or touch a contaminated part of the mask when removing it and transfer the virus to their hand, then their eyes and thus to the nose. Masks may also provide a false sense of security, meaning wearers might do riskier things such as going into crowded spaces and places. Paul Glasziou, Professor of Medicine, Bond University and Chris Del Mar, Professor of Public Health, Bond University
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@tappingmom1 You should never feel that way. You have to do what is best for you health and you have an identified medical condition. Your wearing an N95 mask at this time is imperative for your health. Take care of yourself. This is not so for others who don't have a clue why they are wearing one other than others are unreasonably scared and doing it.
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Masks are nearly worthless...they always have been unless you have some sort of respiratory issue already and/or some weakened immune system. This is NOT news. The CDC isn't even recommending people wear them but not saying anything because it gives people some psychological boost. When's the last time you saw the CDC commercial or the Task Force recommending them? Weeks ago.... The W.H.O. absolutely does not recommend them because they are ineffective. Fact is that almost no one knows how to wear a mask, people touch their faces more than normal (already 23x per hour on average before the mask), people touch the mask and move the mask because they aren't used to them and they are uncomfortable thereby contaminating them and then touching everything around them, and a very large percentage of illnesses (e.g. influenza) enters our bodies through our eyes (from the face touching). And, research shows that when people are wearing masks they tend to take more risks and forget about the other things. Therefore, the masks are NOT effective and I will not be wearing one. Wash your hands...it's 1,000 times more effective. If everyone washed their hands more often and more effectively we would cut all person-to-person illness transmissions in half. Don't believe me? That's fine....go to the WHO and the CDC and other scientific sites and see for yourself. Do not just listen to the media; the media is not our friend.
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