Does your face mask protect you or other people?
Should we wear face masks? We tell our children to cover their mouths when they cough, so when we cannot predict who may or may not have COVID-19, it makes sense to wear a face covering in public.To get more news about
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But not all face coverings are the same. They can be split into two broad categories: respirator masks designed primarily to protect the wearer and cloth face coverings that could be considered to act more as breath diverting devices.
Although breath diverting devices offer a small amount of protection, especially against splashes of liquid, their main role is to stop exhaled breath travelling too far away from the wearer. It makes sense to wear one if the aim is to avoid breathing over other people. Although the virus itself can easily pass through such face coverings, if designed well they can be effective in reducing the extent of spread. Hence recent advice to wear face coverings, especially in enclosed indoor spaces.
The other type, respirator masks, comes in a large variety of types and fittings ranging from the full-faced self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), through to disposable masks referred to as “filtering face pieces” (FFP).
In the UK and Europe, FFPs can be split into three categories depending on how many salt particles (median diameter of 0.6 micrometres) and oil particles (median diameter 0.4 micrometres) they let through, along with several other parameters (for comparison a human hair is about 75 micrometres across). FFP1 masks can prevent 80% of test particles passing through, FFP2 94% and FFP3 99%.
This relatively high filtration efficiency of FFP masks also makes them quite difficult to breathe through, so a valve is sometimes added. As the aim of the valve is to make it easier to breathe for the wearer, the valves tend to filter the air coming in, but not as much going out. As a result, they are designed to protect the wearer from the environment, not the environment from the wearer.This distinction between face coverings designed to protect the wearer, and those that may protect other people, has been central to the recent debate about face masks. In clinical settings, masks are normally used as part of personal protective equipment (PPE). However, severe shortages of PPE throughout the pandemic have made it important that the most effective PPE is reserved for healthcare workers and others on the frontline. Panic buying PPE puts healthcare workers at risk.
Outside of the clinical environment, the situation is very different. Although from a personal perspective we would all like to be protected from getting the virus, the shortage of PPE means that the key aim is to stop the virus spreading in the wider population, not protecting specific individuals. This is why, rather than PPE, we are being encouraged to wear face coverings that divert our breath so that if we are carrying the virus, there is less chance of spreading it to other people.
Surgical masks are the only type of breath diverting masks that are constructed to specific standards (they are considered medical devices in the EU). The vast majority of other face coverings that people buy or make are not constructed to any specific standard meaning their effectiveness is highly variable, although new guidance for making homemade face coverings is increasingly recommending designs and materials known to work well.
