Face masks and COVID-19: Why, when and how to use masks properly
COVID-19 AND FACE MASK
It's important that everyone use a facial covering of wear a mask, even if they're not feeling sick because of the common-- the high prevalence of asymptomatic carriers in Covid infection. The more we test, the more we learn about this disease, the more we've come to realize that there a lot of people out there who will become infected with Covid and never display any symptoms, never get a fever, never get a cough but still maintain the ability to infect others. So for that reason we want everyone, the sick and the well alike, to use a face cover and to use a mask when they are out and about in public, certainly within six feet of other people. So Covid-19 is in the droplets that we all emit when we're just speaking and certainly when we're coughing.
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So a mask, any kind of covering over the nose and mouth keeps those droplets from going out into the space around us. They can travel for, you know, several feet at a time so just having that cover against our nose and face, nose and mouth, keeps us from emitting these viral particles to the people around us. Similarly, your neighbor if they have on a face covering as well, you aren't going to be breathing in their droplets that they're emitting when they're talking to you or coughing.
WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES OF MEDICAL MASK?
The first and simplest mask is the surgical mask. It has an internal metal bar that you mold around the bridge of your nose and two loops that go around your ears. You place the mask over your nose, secure it over both ears, shape it to fit and make sure that the mask actually covers you chin as well, spreading it out like this. What you don't wanna do once you have mask in place, is touch your face. The mask is a good reminder not to touch your nose and mouth
HAND SANITIZER
If you do touch your mask, you should then immediately sanitize your hands. Use hand sanitizer.
HOW TO TAKE OFF MASK CAREFULLY?
When it's time to take off your mask, you want to do that again without touching the front of your mask, which is providing you with protection and is theoretically the dirtiest part of the mask. So you remove it by grasping the loops around your ears and slowly and carefully taking it off and disposing in a trash receptacle.
You can elaborate a mask from a T-shirt, a bandana, simple cloth,just by folding it over and attaching rubber bands to the end and this can be worn as well.
IS N95 MASK PROVIDE HIGHER PROTECTION THAN USUAL?
There is a higher level of protection and that's provided by the N95 respirator that I have here. This is dawned or put on by holding the mask up against your nose and mouth, bringing one elastic band around the top of your head, it rests above your ears and the second one down below resting on the nape of you neck. Again, you wanna mold this mask over the bridge of you nose, not too tight so that it forms too much of a peak but tight enough there's not spaces here on the top of the mask.
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And again, you wanna avoid touching the front of the mask, if you do hand sanitize,let your hands dry before they're considered clean and then when you doffing the mask or removing the mask, you wanna do it slowly and carefully.
So these are tight elastic straps, you wanna keep them from snapping and aerosolizing anything. Here you do have to touch the mask a little bit over the metal bridge to prevent it from moving or remove on elastic band and then the other, holding everything tight and then carefully disposing of your mask.
CDC FACE MASK
So UCSF is following the CDC recommendation and encouraging everyone in our community to use a face covering when they're out in public space so on the shuttle, walking outdoors, around campus, outside of clinical spaces,we are asking folks to use a face cover of some kind. Surgical masks are reserved for the clinical setting, there's a finite supply of them and that's the highest risk space.
So surgical masks are reserved for inside clinical buildings. Outside, a simple face covering can be manufactured, made by you at home from a cloth, a bandana, a towel, simply folding it against itself and securing it to over your mouth and nose using rubber bands.
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