By Chrispine Onyango
Nearly eight months since Kenya recorded the first case of Covid-19, we have reached a point when it is rare to go on a trip to retail centres or walk through the park without seeing people wearing face masks. This has become part of our daily lives.
While wearing a face mask is certainly not a guarantee that you won’t get sick, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is a primary transmission route of coronavirus. If you are likely to be in close contact with someone infected, a mask reduces the chance of the disease spreading. If you’re showing symptoms of coronavirus, or have been diagnosed as being infected, wearing a mask can protect others from contracting the disease. Masks are also crucial for health and social workers looking after patients. Masks are also highly recommended for those taking care of sick family members.
Even though masks are considered an essential tool in fighting Covid-19, it is not advisable to wear it all the time. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that, provided you are healthy and you are not out in public,, you do not need to wear a mask. People should, however, wear masks if they are caring for someone infected with the virus, or if they are unwell and coughing or sneezing and everytime they go out in public.
There are many different masks available in the market, ranging from basic cloth masks, surgical masks, to higher-grade respirator masks. Different masks are recommended for different risk levels. For instance, doctors seeing patients will only need to wear a surgical face mask for general consultations. If they are carrying out aerosol-generating procedures, such as intubating (putting in a breathing tube), extubating (taking out a breathing tube), endoscopy (inserting a flexible tube with a light and camera) or bronchoscopy (a tube passed down the throat to view the lungs), then N95 masks are ideal.
The two main respirator masks used are the FFP3 (filtering facepiece) and the N95 (not resistant to oil, filters 95 per cent of airborne particles). These types are universal. A surgical (non-respirator) face mask is loose-fitting and usually blue. It creates a barrier to airborne contaminants, whereas the respirator masks form a seal around the nose and mouth and have an efficient filtration system. While cloth face coverings aren't 100% effective, wearing them means one is less exposed to the coronavirus.
A good example of the power of face masks in stopping the spread of the coronavirus is what happened in a salon in Missouri in the USA. In this instance, a hairstylist at a particular salon developed respiratory symptoms but kept working for eight days until a Covid-19 test came back positive. Another stylist started getting sick three days later and worked for another seven days before testing positive and staying home. Both colleagues wore masks only when customers were present. Six close contacts of the first stylist ended up coming down with Covid-19. But in the salon, where 98% of clients wore masks, things played out differently. Out of the 67 clients exposed to one or both of the stylists and tested for Covid-19, none of their customers tested positive.
