Share
March 21, 2020 The Ministry of the Interior has issued a vademecum on the use and choice of protective masks to provide useful information on their use."Given the difficulty in finding them, while waiting for supplies to be available to everyone - says Asso Forma, the company in charge of drawing up the handbook - we recommend using them and choosing them according to these priorities:
- FFP3 ( with exhalation valve) hospitals : Intensive Care Departments, (because they are in contact with certainly infected patients).
- FFP2 ( with exhalation valve) rescuers (because they are in contact with potentially infected people and / or patients).
- FFP2 ( without valve) Law enforcement only in case of emergency and aid to rescuers (because they must be protected but do not risk contagion among themselves)
- FFP2 ( without valve) family doctors and medical guards . Alternatively with valve (but remember that the valve is of help to those forced to use it for a long time in the presence of a potentially ill patient); doctors will be able to combine the surgical mask over the FFP2 mask with valve to limit the diffusion of their exhalation from the valve.
- surgical or home-made masks , must use them: all the circulating population , all the people who work or are forced to work, the police themselves, the offices open to the public, the staff in charge of selling food and, in any case, all people or workers in circulation.
For hospital workers, nurses and / or the doctors themselves, when not in the ward, it may be advisable to use the surgical (or if available the FFP2 or FFP3 but without valve or with the addition of the surgical mask in front of the valve) to limit the maximum spread of the infection.
Who should not use the FFP2 and FFP3 with valve
It is important to know that the fumes escape from the valve of the mask (which is equivalent to spreading the possible infection, it is like not having them) therefore:
-Absolutely not recommended for the population, (they would contribute to contaminating each other);
- They are also not recommended for law enforcement officers who are forced to close contact between colleagues;
- They are also not recommended for all food departments or fresh food counters;
- Not recommended for offices open to the public.
Who should use FFP2 and FFP3 with valve:
-Hospitals Intensive care units and infectious diseases;
-Rescuers 118, Green Cross, Red Cross, or similar;
(These categories are presumed to have contact with infected people or patients) they must make efforts and / or must keep them for a long time.
Who must have FFP2 and FFP3 without valve:
- The police, to be used only and exclusively for emergency interventions or interventions in assistance to rescuers, in combination with disposable goggles and gloves.
In summary:
Citizenship must not use valve masks because they can spread the infection. The sales staff do not have to use the mask with valve because they can spread the infection. These two categories must use valveless or surgical or homemade masks with heavy tissues that absorb the exhalation and humidity, retaining it and not releasing it.