Several countries recommend mouth protection

Several countries are now changing their recommendations on oral protection. In France, the authorities recommend that everyone use mouthguards. In Italian Lombardy, the most heavily corned region in the country, a regional law has been established that requires citizens to wear mouthguards while staying outdoors, writes the Guardian.

The United States Infection Protection Agency (CDC) now recommends that all Americans who have to move among people should use home-made mouth protection. The CDC even has instructions on how to make mouthguards for yourself at home.

The purpose is not to spread the infection to others if you yourself have not discovered that you are infected. In the reasoning about oral protection in the USA, it is also emphasized that the classified and factory-made oral protectors should be used primarily by healthcare professionals and others who work to prevent the infection when they are in greatest need.

The Swedish Public Health Authority has previously said that oral protection has had no significant effect, but the state of knowledge is changing rapidly.

- Now there is new data that the mouthguard can actually help against drip infection. We get new knowledge all the time, says Karin Tegmark Wisell, Head of the Public Health Authority of SVT's Agenda.

The World Health Organization WHO has found that the corona can infect without any symptoms, something that the Public Health Authority knows about. Karin Tegmark Wisell emphasizes that it is then very close contacts and that it is unusual.

"It is when you cough and sneeze, when the particles come out of the air, that the infection is able to be transmitted to other people," she says.

But not all experts have the same view on mouth protection. Johan Giesecke, professor emeritus at Karolinska Institutet and former state epidemiologist, skeptical of the benefit of the public using oral protection.

- The evidence that it would work is small. In healthcare, it works well. But running around town with a small cloth that gets wet, that it works is not much evidence for, he says in an interview in SVT's Morning Studio.

The Public Health Authority has not changed its recommendations regarding oral protection. They write the following on their site:

"Mouthguards are not needed in ordinary situations in society, so it is better to keep a distance from other people and be careful to wash your hands."