Gail Alexan­der

Trans­par­ent masks are a pos­si­bil­i­ty that could be used by those who are around or have to deal with hear­ing-im­paired peo­ple, Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram has said.

He was re­ply­ing to queries at yes­ter­day’s brief­ing where in­fec­tion con­trol nurse Keisha Pre­vatt-Gomez al­so spoke about the use of masks.

On how chal­lenges for deaf peo­ple can be han­dled where the use of masks by oth­ers are con­cerned, Pre­vatt-Gomez en­dorsed the words of Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh. He said that peo­ple need to wear masks to pro­tect those hear­ing-im­paired among them from get­ting the COVID-19 virus. Deyals­ingh al­so said al­lowances can be made for sit­u­a­tions in­volv­ing deaf peo­ple.

Paras­ram added that some coun­tries had ad­vised peo­ple to use trans­par­ent masks where they’re deal­ing with hear­ing-im­paired peo­ple. The lat­ter would then be able to read the lips of those wear­ing masks,

“We can look in­to this, it may be an op­tion to wear trans­par­ent masks or wear some­thing clear close to the mouth - this has been done in oth­er states and it may a pos­si­bil­i­ty here,” Paras­ram added.

Pre­vatt-Gomez re­mind­ed the pub­lic that masks must be used es­pe­cial­ly when so­cial dis­tanc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty isn’t avail­able. It can be re­moved if so­cial dis­tanc­ing space is ful­ly avail­able.

But she stressed masks alone don’t pro­tect peo­ple from con­t­a­m­i­na­tion since oth­er steps are al­so nec­es­sary: so­cial dis­tanc­ing, hand hy­giene and stay­ing home un­less one has to go to work or briefly to pur­chase items.

Pre­vatt-Gomez ad­vised that when masks are re­moved they should be placed in a pa­per or plas­tic bag and not put in a pock­et or hand­bag where they can get con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed.