The Academy of Medicine has made several recommendations on wearing a mask.

She believes that washing those in fabric at 60 ° is for example not justified, and that surgical masks should be reserved for sick people and caregivers.

"Good use of masks."

It is with this clear title that the Academy of Medicine made several recommendations on Monday to clarify the wearing of the mask, in the midst of the resumption of the coronavirus pandemic in the country.

"The current epidemiological indicators predicting a prolonged epidemic situation, it becomes necessary to integrate the wearing of the mask in the daily gestures by making it comprehensible, acceptable and routine", write the doctors in their press release, published on the internet.

While "a plethora of often contradictory claims maintains general confusion," the Academy made several recommendations.

Among them: the wearing of fabric masks in public spaces, rather than so-called surgical ones, or the uselessness of washing at 60 degrees for reusable ones.

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In public spaces, favor the wearing of fabric masks

Like the High Council of Public Health (HCSP), the academy believes that reusable masks for the general public should be favored in the public space, "for obvious economic and ecological reasons".

Doctors recommend the use of surgical masks preferably during "care activities", and systematically for "sick people or in isolation".

No need to wash your mask at 60 degrees 

At the start of confinement, authorities and many doctors called for the cloth masks to be washed at 60 degrees.

It is no longer the case.

Washing at 60 degrees is not justified for the mask, since you do not wash your hands at 60 degrees.

They can also be machine washed with the same detergent as the laundry, but also with other clothes.

Fabric masks, reusable as long as their qualities "are not altered"

The Academy of Medicine goes even further in its recommendations and considers that one should change the mask when it is wet, and never wear it for more than a day.

This means that we could wear it a little longer than the 4-5 hours that we recommend, from the moment your mask is dry.

In addition, all fabric masks are reusable after each cycle if you find that "the quality of the mesh and the flanges are not affected".

So in practice, it is no longer justified to throw away a sheet mask, even after the 5, 10, 30 or 40 washes that are recommended.

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The Academy recommends wearing a mask in all enclosed and open public places

Finally, the Academy recommends "that the obligation to wear a mask, systematically associated with distancing measures, be introduced in all public places, closed and open, according to rules easy to understand, apply and control."

It also asks "that clear and simplified information on the use of masks be widely disseminated".

"Wearing a mask in the community is not optional; masking oneself to protect others is an altruistic gesture whose collective effectiveness is certain when everyone applies it", insists the Academy.