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Surgical masks are protecting patients not doctors. Please educate yourself. "The coronavirus is an upper respiratory virus and a surgical mask does not protec
by bitL 7y ago
Surgical masks are protecting patients not doctors. Please educate yourself.
"The coronavirus is an upper respiratory virus and a surgical mask does not protect you from that kind of virus,” he said. “In fact, when people buy up these masks and hoard these masks then they might not be available for healthcare providers to use for patient care.”
He said surgical masks are more effective on people who are already infected with an illness to keep them from infecting others rather than the other way around. He said other types of masks are not very effective at preventing you from getting sick either."
https://www.wibc.com/news/local-indiana/surgeon-general-surgical-masks-wont-protect-you-from-the-coronavirus/ https://www.wibc.com/news/local-indiana/surgeon-general-surg...
- gwright 7y ago> The coronavirus is an upper respiratory virus I thought it was a lower respiratory virus. I have no idea if that changes the efficacy of masks but...
- Gibbon1 7y agoProbably a typo/fumble finger. Wading through all the dreck it seems that it causes viral pneumonia which is always bad news. Read just today that an advantage of any mask is it keeps people from transferring the virus from their fingers to their mouth and nose. A paper on the effectiveness of home made masks, like from tee shirt material says they are in no way a replacement for N95 masks but are better than nothing.
- bitL 7y agoMy understanding is that it starts as an upper respiratory virus (mainly concentrated in the throat), leading to flu/cold-like symptoms and only those unlucky ones that get it deep in their lungs attached to ACE2 receptors end up with a life-threatening lower respiratory illness requiring ICU and ventilator/ECMO due to immunity going berserk and killing off lung tissue with virus embedded in it, a cytokine storm.
- adrianN 7y agoUnlike with SARS there is a significant viral load in the upper respiratory tract too.
- Consultant32452 7y agohttps://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/surgical-mask-flu-prevention https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/surgical-mas... >“Yes, a surgical mask can help prevent the flu,” Sherif Mossad, MD, an infectious disease specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, tells Health. “Flu is carried in air droplets, so a mask would mechanically prevent the flu virus from reaching other people.” It would work both ways, says Dr. Mossad, preventing transmission of the flu virus to others and for keeping a mask-wearer from picking up an infection.
- bitL 7y ago“Disposable is best and you should discard your mask after each use,” says Dr. Besser. “If a mask gets wet—and it will by simply breathing into it—the effectiveness of its protective effect is reduced.” Are you really going to change your surgical mask every 3 minutes to make it effective against getting infected?
- Consultant32452 7y agoDo surgeons change their surgical masks every 3 minutes while performing surgery? And the operative word the doctor used is "reduced" effectiveness, not "eliminated" effectiveness.
- bitL 7y agoSurgeons wear it so that their breath/mouth droplets don't end up in patient's intenstines while performing a surgery, causing an infection. For that purpose a single surgical mask can last hours (i.e. it keeps droplets on the inner surface of the mask). If they have to perform surgery on highly dangerous patients, they use hazmat suits instead: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9bd2e88c4296be54e7f845276ffdc3b0-c https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9bd2e88c4296be54e7f845...
- watwut 7y ago> the effectiveness of its protective effect is reduced. How did you jumped from "reduced" to "completely useless". > Are you really going to change your surgical mask every 3 minutes to make it effective against getting infected? My typical situation is not surgical situation.
- bootlooped 7y ago"(N95) Masks won't protect you" was an expedient lie. How can it be that medical professionals are in dire need of N95 masks to protect them from the virus, yet they are powerless to do any good in the hands of the public? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-masks.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... If everybody in the US could wear one of these when out in public, we would be in a much better place. The sad truth is we don't have enough to do that, not that this would not help.
- bitL 7y agoN95 is not a surgical mask. That one is a professional respirator. Yet infection can enter via eyes, so one has to wear airtight glasses as well to be sure. Surgical mask looks like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_mask https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgical_mask There is no respirator embedded as you can see, it's just a simple piece of fabric. The point of my original reply was that we could reduce R0/transmission rate only if everybody had to wear surgical mask in public. If you are the only one wearing it, it doesn't really help. Some EU countries now require everybody to wear a mask while shopping or using public transport.