HEALTH PLUS MED­ICAL COR­RE­SPON­DENT

Wear­ing a mask can save lives. FACT.

An­oth­er Fact: Sham­ing peo­ple who refuse to wear face masks to pre­vent Coro­n­avirus spread is not go­ing to con­vince per­sons of the need for them.

Masks have be­come an on­go­ing de­bate with many see­ing mask-wear­ing as a must and oth­ers shar­ing a host of rea­sons why they shouldn’t use them. HEALTH PLUS field­ed the opin­ions of our pop­u­la­tion and con­clud­ed along with the rest of the world, that there are sev­er­al “Mask Myths” out there, thus we at­tempt­ed to set the record straight on these com­mon mis­un­der­stand­ings.

MYTH 1: “I feel fine, I don’t need a mask” (FALSE)

FACT: Re­search has shown that a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of peo­ple with COVID-19 lack symp­toms. The Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) re­ports that more than 40 per­cent of virus trans­mis­sions hap­pen be­fore peo­ple feel sick. A pre-symp­to­matic per­son can spread the virus even be­fore symp­toms arise. These per­sons do not know they are trans­mit­ting the virus to oth­ers when they talk, sneeze, cough or raise their voice (for ex­am­ple: singing or shout­ing). Oth­er re­search says this “silent-spread­ing” might even be more fre­quent, sug­gest­ing more than half of COVID-19 in­fec­tions re­sult from asymp­to­matic and pre-symp­to­matic cas­es.

The im­pli­ca­tion of these find­ings is that you might not be vis­i­bly un­well, but you could still be in­fect­ed and in­fec­tious. Wear­ing a mask helps to low­er the trans­mis­sion of res­pi­ra­to­ry droplets to oth­er peo­ple around you.

MYTH 2: Oxy­gen lev­els will drop and car­bon diox­ide will be re-in­haled (FALSE)

FACT: Just as oxy­gen can get in, car­bon diox­ide can get out. So, ac­cu­mu­la­tion of car­bon diox­ide is not a di­rect con­cern.

If you are not used to it, wear­ing a mask might feel un­com­fort­able or un­usu­al. It may cause anx­i­ety re­lat­ed to claus­tro­pho­bia but wear­ing a face mask will not cause car­bon diox­ide (CO2) re­ten­tion or oxy­gen de­fi­cien­cy. Con­sid­er sur­gi­cal staff who rou­tine­ly wear face masks for hours to per­form surgery, where clin­i­cal ef­fec­tive­ness is peak, fo­cus and pre­ci­sion are nec­es­sary. If wear­ing face masks caused CO2 re­ten­tion, it would not be part of sur­gi­cal tech­niques. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, over the years there is no doc­u­ment­ed ev­i­dence of any sur­geon pass­ing out be­cause of face mask us­age and oxy­gen de­fi­cien­cy.

“If you feel un­com­fort­able in your mask,” says the Mayo Clin­ic, “Try to lim­it your talk­ing and fo­cus on breath­ing through your nose. That will re­duce the hu­mid­i­ty lev­el in your mask, that adds to the claus­tro­pho­bia.” Car­bon diox­ide will freely dif­fuse through your mask as you breathe.

MYTH 3: My mask just needs to cov­er my mouth (FALSE)

FACT: A mask should cov­er both your mouth and your nose. It should be snug but com­fort­able against the sides of your face, and you should be able to breathe with­out re­stric­tion. Choose one that se­cures with ties or ear loops. Do not wear your mask around your neck or chin, or over your head – that doesn’t pro­tect any­one.

MYTH 4: I don’t need to wear a mask, if I phys­i­cal­ly dis­tance (FALSE)

FACT: To be crys­tal clear, it’s NOT ei­ther a mask or re­main 6 feet apart from oth­ers…it is both. Wear­ing a mask and phys­i­cal­ly dis­tanc­ing at least 6 feet apart is for every­one’s pro­tec­tion, in­clud­ing yours.

MYTH 5: Masks on­ly help if some­one has symp­toms (FALSE)

FACT: Cough­ing and sneez­ing do cre­ate very high-risk sit­u­a­tions, but even talk­ing can al­so spread in­fect­ed res­pi­ra­to­ry droplets. Any time in­hal­ing and ex­hal­ing oc­cur, there is po­ten­tial to spread the virus. Due to this, we con­tin­ue to en­cour­age peo­ple to wear masks.

Masks help us pre­vent in­fec­tion in sev­er­al ways:

• You may have COVID-19 with­out know­ing. We know it is pos­si­ble for peo­ple to car­ry the virus with­out hav­ing symp­toms. By wear­ing a mask, you can pre­vent ac­ci­den­tal spread.

• Wear­ing a mask al­so helps pro­tect you by pre­vent­ing in­fec­tion. If some­one else is not masked and spreads in­fect­ed droplets in­to the air, the mask serves as a bar­ri­er that lim­its the like­li­hood that you will breathe in those droplets and be­come in­fect­ed.

• Touch­ing your face with un­washed hands (or even gloves), could get the live virus in your eyes, mouth or nose. De­pend­ing on the amount of virus on your hands, this can cause in­fec­tion. Masks pro­vide a bar­ri­er to at least the mouth and nose.

Al­though these masks are new to most in our com­mu­ni­ty, they are com­mon in the health care set­ting. Due to this, we have years of ex­pe­ri­ence with them, and are cer­tain they are safe to wear. Wear­ing a mask helps to low­er the trans­mis­sion of res­pi­ra­to­ry droplets to oth­er peo­ple around you. Sim­ply put, wear­ing a cloth mask helps de­crease the spread of COVID-19 and save lives.

It’s NOT enough to just wear a mask

As the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion has em­pha­sized, wear­ing a mask alone isn’t enough. So­cial dis­tanc­ing and per­son­al hy­giene re­main im­por­tant. Equal­ly, the or­gan­i­sa­tion stress­es the need to wear face masks safe­ly and em­pha­sizes the list of dos and don’ts – from how to clean them to wear­ing them prop­er­ly.