How To Make Your Face Mask More Protective: Tips, More

[appalachiablue]

- Achieve a boost in filtration efficiency by wearing a 2-layer mask with a pocket for a filter. Insert a surgical mask or a carbon filter in that pocket.
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'5 Hacks And Tips To Make Your Face Mask More Protective.' NPR, February 3, 2021.

It's time to up your mask game. With new, more contagious strains of the coronavirus spreading in the U.S., and transmission levels still very high in many places, some public health experts recommend that Americans upgrade from the basic cloth masks that many have been wearing during the pandemic. "A cloth mask might be 50% effective at blocking viruses and aerosols," says Linsey Marr, a researcher at Virginia Tech who studies airborne virus transmission. "We're at the point now ... that we need better than 50%."

When you're outdoors, where fresh air can quickly disperse virus droplets and smaller particles, a cloth mask is still fine, Marr says. But infectious particles can accumulate indoors, and that's when you want a better mask. "I am now wearing my best mask to the grocery store. I wasn't before," Marr says. Ideally, we would all be wearing medical-grade N95 respirators – so-called because they block out at least 95% of particles when worn correctly. But even now, N95s remain in short supply for consumers, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still says they should be reserved for health care workers.

Luckily, there are other ways to seriously boost the protection your face mask offers. Here's how.

1. Wear two masks: The concept of double-masking has gotten a lot of attention lately, especially after Dr. Anthony Fauci, America's top infectious disease expert, touted it on the TODAY show. Start with a surgical mask closest to your face, says Marr, and then add a cloth one on top. You want a surgical mask made out of a nonwoven material called polypropylene, because that material holds an electrostatic charge that allows it to trap particles. (Some surgical masks are made of paper.) The downside of surgical masks is that many of them fit loosely — and a mask's ability to filter out particles depends partly on how well it seals to your face. By layering a cloth mask on top, you can achieve a tighter fit while also adding an extra layer of filtration, says Marr, who co-wrote a recent commentary recommending double-masking.

But don't keep piling on masks, Marr warns; just one additional mask is plenty. If your masks become too hard to breathe through, air will leak in and out through the sides instead. "Then it's like you have a hole in your mask," she says.

Even if you start out with two masks that are each only around 50% effective at blocking out particles, when you layer one on top of the other, you can end up with a combination that is 75% effective or more, Marr says.

Here's how Marr explains that math: "If you have 100 viruses that are flying toward your mask that is 50% effective, then 50 of them will be filtered out and 50 will pass through. When those 50 get to the second mask, 25 will be filtered out and 25 will pass through. Thus, the overall efficiency is 75%." Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco, says double-masking is especially important for people in specific circumstances: adults who work in crowded indoor environments and medically vulnerable people who are going into indoor spaces in areas with high transmission.

2. Add a filter: You can achieve a boost in filtration efficiency by wearing a two-layer mask with a pocket for a filter...

More, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/03/962197192/5-hacks-to-make-your-face-mask-more-protective



- The pantyhose trick: Cut a ring of material, about 8- 10" top to bottom, from one leg on a pair of pantyhose. Then pull the ring over your head & on top of your mask to create a tight fit to the face.

[cilla4progress]

1. Love that 2nd idea!

We started wearing 2 when we noticed on VP Harris and then others.

No luck finding N95s to buy, but found some good KN95s.

We were given N95s at the vaccine site today. One down, one to go.

[BigmanPigman]

2. I got 5 of them last March and am still

reusing them. They fit tightly and are somewhat warm to wear but for short trips to the stores it is what I will continue to wear until this shit is over.

[Ferrets are Cool]

3. I wear a N95 with a cloth mask over it

I hope it is enough.