It’s long past time to start wearing high-filtration masks like N95s or KN95s
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Why should people start using high-filtration masks like N95s and KN95s as their go-to, everyday masks rather than cloth ones? As one of my colleagues has put it, just like you have a fire extinguisher, everyone should have access to respirators for an emergency. And I think that’s right. I think that the next time there’s a pandemic, or the next surge or whatever it is, if we need to wait for new vaccines and there are delays, you should be able to reach into your drawer, pull out a high-filtration mask, and feel protected. Not wear a bandana.
The transmissibility issue is a huge one, and masks are completely tied to that. The chances of catching COVID in transient or fleeting interactions, like being in the grocery store for a few minutes or being face-to-face with somebody for a conversation — I think it’s far more likely that I could get transmission now with this variant than with any others in the past. It changes my risk calculus.
I think that people don’t know which masks to get, or where to get them, and then actually being able to afford them. Those are issues that the government can address. They can literally just say, “Okay, let’s look into this. Here are four or five mask options that we think the public can use. Here’s an instructional kit on how to improve fit.”
Exactly. And I’ll tell you, I feel completely protected now. I wore an N95 to the gym and worked out, and everything felt totally fine. I didn’t have any issues breathing. I felt protected. From day one of this pandemic, if you wanted to not shut down and you wanted people to still go into workplaces, there have been ways to do this. You can wear a good mask, go to work and then if you need to take a break, step outside.
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