Watch out.. these masks are penetrated by Omicron
After the spread of the omicron variant of the emerging corona virus, doctors found that cloth face masks do not provide sufficient protection against the virus.
Instead, experts recommend stronger medical masks should be worn, according to the Wall Street Journal.
And Thursday, the Mayo Clinic required all patients and visitors to wear surgical masks or a "N95" or "KN95" mask to enter the hospital building.
"If you don't really want to be exposed (to the virus), you have to wear the right kind of mask," said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.
Gandhi recommends N95 masks approved in the United States or KN95, KF94, and FFP2 masks approved in China, South Korea and Europe, respectively.
She added: "A cloth or surgical mask will not protect you" from this highly popular alternative, noting the need to wear a multi-layered cloth mask over the normal surgical mask.
Surgical masks are made of polypropylene, which has electrostatic charging properties that prevent the virus from transmitting, and they are loose-fitting, single-use masks that provide protection from the arrival or exit of droplets and mists that contain germs, as they filter the air from large particles during inhalation.
Single-layer cloth masks, which many people prefer for comfort and style, can block large droplets that carry the virus, but they are not effective at blocking ultrafine particles that carry the virus, according to infectious disease specialists.
"Any mask is better than no mask," said Rano Dillon, a doctor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "But cloth masks and then surgical masks are not as good as the N95 masks."
The "N95" masks, approved by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, contain a network of fibers that is denser than surgical or cloth masks, as this net is considered more compact and generally makes these masks more effective in preventing the arrival of large droplets and aerosols that are exhaled by the wearer. .
It also prevents the inhalation of these particles better.
Properly fitted and certified N95 masks can filter up to 95 percent of the particles in the air.
Doctor and infectious disease specialist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Megan Srinivas, said she and other members of her family wear "KN95" masks, which contain five layers of overlapping material and are more convenient to reduce entry of small particles.
"We need to educate the public and say that different quality masks provide different protection," she said.
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