"The HCSP (High Council of Public Health, editor's note) recommends to the French, and this is the recommendation that I also make them, to no longer use the homemade mask that we made at home," said the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, Thursday on TF1, faced with new variants of the coronavirus. 

The government is asking the French to stop using certain fabric masks, including homemade ones, considered insufficiently filtering in the face of the appearance of new, more contagious variants of the coronavirus, said the Minister of Health, Olivier Véran, Thursday on TF1.

"The HCSP (High Council of Public Health, editor's note) recommends to the French, and this is the recommendation that I also make them, to no longer use the homemade mask that we made at home," said the minister, which also asks to avoid the least filtering industrial fabric masks (called "category 2").

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Three types of masks to wear in public spaces

The decree in which these provisions appear, as well as the opinion of the HCSP on which it is based, must be published Friday morning, said the Ministry of Health.

Henceforth, only three types of masks will therefore in principle have to be worn in public spaces, even if it will be difficult to ensure in practice that this instruction is respected: surgical masks (from the medical world, with a blue face and a white face), FFP2 (the most protective) and so-called “category 1” industrial fabric masks.

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Category 1 fabric masks (or UNS1, for "non-sanitary use 1") filter 90% of particles, against 70% for category 2 (UNS2), according to standards developed by Afnor.

Surgical masks, on the other hand, filter at least 95% of particles of 3 micrometers.

Finally, FFP2 block 94% of aerosols, the finest particles (around 0.6 micrometers).

A strong incentive in the face of variants 

The health authorities want to encourage the French to wear the most filtering masks because of the appearance of new variants more contagious than the classic coronavirus, detected first in England or South Africa.

These variants are transmitted in the same way: increasing the level of filtration of masks is not therefore intended to ensure better individual protection, but rather to increase collective protection, by ensuring that as many people as possible wear a sufficiently filtering mask.

"We are asking that this be the norm from now on", we told the Prime Minister's office, adding that it was a question of "passing this message very clearly to the French".

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In fact, it is above all a strong incentive since the measure is difficult to impose in practice.

"I do not think that the police will ask each person the level of protection of their mask", we added to Matignon.

Another obstacle, the category of industrial fabric masks does not appear most of the time on the mask itself, but on the packaging or instructions.

The safety distance increases to two meters

In addition, the government will also modify the necessary safety distance below which one is considered a contact case when one is not wearing a mask.

While this distance was so far one meter, it is now two meters.

This was again a recommendation from the HCSP in the face of the arrival of new variants.

"It will have consequences in the way in which the Health Insurance makes contact tracing to identify contact cases", with isolation measures to the key, we commented to the Ministry of Health.