It's Thursday, April two. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily coronavirus update. The CDC is considering recommendations for people to wear face masks while out in public. Previously, the recommendation was not to buy any masks, as medical workers needed them and they were in short supply. But we have gotten to the point where we need to step up
efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus. Masks reduced the spread of infectious disease by catching microbes expelled by the wearer and also protecting them from outside microbes. And while they might not catch everything, there's a strong case we should all be wearing masks during a pandemic. Farris Jaber, writer for Wired, joins us for how wearing face masks could help. Thanks for joining us, Farris, Yes, thank you for having me. We're gonna be talking about face masks.
The CDC is considering recommending the general public start wearing face coverings in public. There's been a lot of back and forth, obviously when this whole pandemic started, especially here in the United States. The officials worth telling people don't buy face mask because there was a critical shortage for medical workers that needed them. Then they said, hey, if you're sick, maybe you should wear, but if you're healthy, you don't need to. Now all of this is changing,
The guidelines might be changing very soon. But Farris, you wrote an article about how it's kind of time to face it, face the facts that masks do work even if they're not effective. What they do provide could help help the spread of the COVID nineteen as we're experiencing it right now. So in other words, any little bit helps kind of thing. Uh, Farris tells us a little
bit more about that. That's right. So that the official guidance from the CDC and the WHO has been that masks are not effective when it comes to the general public. That they are effective for healthcare workers, but there's not really strong evidence that they can help prevent members of the general public from getting a respiratory illness. But when you really look at the evidence as a whole, well, I think there is pretty pretty compelling reasons that members
of the general public should wear masks as well. Um, And so there's different kinds of mass that kind of get lumped together. Sometimes the N nine respirators are the most efficient and effective, and those are the ones that are really essential for for healthcare workers who perform procedures that generate these really tiny respiratory droplets that are difficult
to filter out. And for most people, that level of protection is not necessary because we're not constantly in contact with infected people the way that doctors and nurses are. And then the second level is a surgical mask, which is usually a soft pleated rectangle, and those work really well um too. And then doctors and nurses use those all the time as well when they're not doing high
risk procedures. But unfortunately, right now in the US and many other countries, there's simply two massive shortage of nine and surgical masks for the public to use those. You know, any any new ones that are produced really should be going to hospitals and healthcare workers. So the best option for everybody else right now is to make fabric masks
at home UM. And there are a few studies that have examined how well fabric masks work against influenza and other respiratory diseases, and the answer is not as well as surgical masks and nine, but still surprisingly well. They definitely provide some protection. And if you know, there's increasing evidence that with COVID there's a lot of people who
are infected but don't realize it. They don't have noticeable symptoms, so they could be out and about on their essential tasks, buying food or medicine, spreading the virus without realizing it because they don't feel that anything is wrong. So if everybody puts on a mask, that could powerfully reduce the risk of transmitting the virus. And that's exactly why the guidelines might be changing. It's for these people that are asymptomatic that could be spreading it and not knowing it.
Most of these droplets, these respiratory droplets that get thrown out there. It happens when you're talking, but mostly when you're offing or sneezing. Is when they're gonna be traveling distances that could be dangerous to people. You were talking about some studies that were done on different types of masks and and and alternatives. There was one that came out in ten where scientists compared the filtration efficiency of the surgical mask to Linen's a silk scarf, kitchen towel
vacuum cleaner bags. Tell us how that one turned out. Yeah, that's an interesting study which has been cited a lot, because they really looked at quite a wide variety of homemade materials, you know, a household materials a lot of people would have access to. And um, the vacuum cleaner bag turned out to be the second best after the surgical mass because it is so dense and tightly woven. But the problem is that it's really uncomfortable to wear a vacuum cleaner bag over your face for a long
period of time. Just so they ended up favoring the cotton T shirt and the kitchen towel because those are both fairly dense but still breathable and still comfortable. They have some allow asticity to them, and they really, they really thought that a homemade mask mean out of a cotton T shirt was the best option. Um. I recently
heard someone doing something kind of clever. So certain certain homemade fabric masks that you can buy on Etsy or that people are making in their communities have a pocket in them, and some people will buy a manufactured filter. It's just sort of like a little path that you slip into that pocket. But somebody said that they put a vacuum cleaner bag or part of one inside that pocket, which I think is a pretty good idea. It's worth trying. As long as you can breathe through it, that's okay.
You know, you don't want to impede your breathing too much, but you want to get something that's that's pretty tight and dense to be able to block out those particles. When I saw that part of that study, I mean I immediately chuckled a little bit because I remember the big vacuum bags from when I was a kid, you know, having to do chores, and it's like, I mean, have to put a whole bag on my head for this
to work. But okay, So the question is, uh, you know these ninety five and the surgical masks, they have filters in them. If people need to make one at home, you know, out of a T shirt, claws, other claws or whatever. What should they be doing for that filter to to be able to filter out as much as they can? Right? So, the filter that's used in nine surgical masks is a really special kind of material. It's usually called melt blown fabric or or spun fabric, and
it's basically cotton, candy, plastic. It's you know, it's extremely tiny filaments of plastic and it's produced by machines that cost millions of dollars to construct, and their massive, massive machines, so it's really difficult to replicate that kind of material exactly. So you know, still okay though, to just have cotton or just have a towel over your face, because the idea really is to catch the brunt of a cough
or a sneeze. You know, there's there's all these large globs of mucus that are visible that you're going to catch and stop, and those all contain virus in them and as well, so you don't you don't only have to prevent the really tiny particles with with a special manufactured filter. But some people you know that will try to find these uh sort of filter replacements that are meant to be slipped inside fabric masks. Um there, you
know they were. I think they're more common Asian than they are in the West, but they are sort of out there and some people will find them online. But that I don't, you know, it's really not necessary I think it from most people, it's it's okay just to have one or two layers of cotton or another another suitable material. That's basically where we've gotten to this point. Early on they said, hey, don't buy the masks, medical professionals need them, and you're not going to wear it
right either, and you're gonna be touching your face. But we've gotten to this point where we really want to stem the flow of this spread. And at this point anything helps, you know, just as you mentioned, you know, even wearing some cotton T shirt is going to catch at least the biggest parts of a coffer a sneeze. And so this is the point that we're at and
this is why these recommendations might be changing. That's right, and it's a good point to bring up the use of mass because it does make a big difference in how effective they are. And you know, there are some basic guidelines to follow, just as there are you know with handwashing, and it's it's really not that difficult to learn. I think the most important things to remember is that when you should you really have to treat the mask
like something that is very sterile and sanitized. So when you when you before you put it on, wash your hands. Once you have it on your face, go out and do whatever you have to do, and do not touch the mask, don't fidget with it, don't take it off for anything, just leave it alone. When you come back home, remove the mask by the strings or the ear loops. Do not touch the front piece, which is probably caught microbes in it, and then immediately sanitize that by putting
it into a hot wash. If it's a fabric mask, or if you've made a disposable paper mask, just throw it away immediately. And that those are really the basic steps you need to know to make sure that you're not accidentally contaminating yourself with the mass. There was a line you put in your article that says, the collective evidence makes a strong case for universal mask wearing a pandemic, and there was two things that you mentioned throughout the article.
You know, if you look at photos of Americans during the nineteen eighteen influenza pandemic, which a lot of people have been referencing as of lately because of this, you know, you see a lot of photos people are all wearing masks. And then beyond that, culturally, in Japan, it's rude if you're not wearing one if you're sick, because you don't want to get other people sick. I just was on a trip to Japan in December, right before all of this started, and yeah, they're everywhere, and it's just a
normal practice for them. Coupled all this together, you know, yeah, it very much does make the case for when something is going around like this, we should be protecting ourselves, even if it's not with an end ninety five or
a surgical mass specifically exactly. And it's really interesting that, you know, Japan and some of the other Asian countries which have had repeated experiences with epidemics and pandemics that we haven't had here in the US and scient eighteen, they are the countries where mask wearing is much more culturally ingrained. And they're also of the countries that are handling this pandemic a lot better. They're having much better outcomes so far. And it's absolutely true there's many other
factors at play. You know that they've acted faster, they've acted more rigorously. Um but a lot of people think the maths are a big part of that as well. And it's also interesting that in nineteen eighteen, it was actually America's widespread use of mass that originally inspired Japan to start doing the same, which seems so odd today because it's so culturally ingrained there and so foreign and almost taboo here. But Japanese health authorities were directly inspired
by Americans recommending that everybody wrapped their faces and gauze. Yeah, I'm sure everybody's gonna be seeing a lot of guides online for how to make your own masks. I've already seen a bunch, but I'm sure there's going to be increased posts regarding that. I'm sure we'll start getting it together on that front. I don't know if it will ever become a cultural thing here in the United States, but it's definitely something to watch out for, at least
on that right. Farris Jaber, writer for Wired, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.