Viruses and surgical masks

Regardless of what they tell you on TV, wearing an n95 respirator will help you avoid getting influenza. Oh, it may not be all that effective under the kind of rigid laboratory testing they are put through but you don't really care about that. It's not like you're planning to use the thing while working on a genetically engineered superbug with death the result if you catch it. In other words, it doesn't have to be all that effective to be useful to you. Influenza is spread three ways. One, somebody sneezes or coughs the stuff into the air and you inhale it. Two, somebody sneezes or coughs the stuff onto their hands and then touches you, or you touch them, and then you touch your eyes, nose, or (to a somewhat lesser extent) mouth. Third, somebody sneezes the gunk onto a surface (doorknob, keyboard, money), you touch the surfance, and then you touch your eyes, nose, or mouth. It's not clear whether n95 will stop the smallest airborne droplets. But that hardly means wearing a mask won't help. It may stop the droplets or at least provide some protection. If it does, great. But even if it doesn't it will interrupt the other modes of transmission to a pretty high degree. You can't touch your nose or mouth while you're wearing one, and it should be a constant reminder not to touch your eyes. If you are in the habit of thoroughly washing your hands before removing your mask (and possibly again after) that's a big impediment to the disease vector. Most people don't wear the masks properly, of course. An n95 respirator is hot, uncomfortable, and just generally unpleasant to wear for any length of time. So people wear it but keep it way too loose. Or they are constantly adjusting it which, surprise, brings their hands very close to their eyes, nose, and mouth. And so on. But if you wear it properly it will help prevent transmission. If you listen carefully they usually don't say on the news that wearing one is useless. They just say things like "we don't recommend it at this time" or "washing your hands is the best way to prevent transmission". That's because they don't want to give you bad information, but at the same time nobody is going to get on television and announce that wearing an n95 respirator while walking the streets is a good thing. It's just not the done thing. I have a whole bunch of n95 respirators in a closet somewhere. I don't expect I'll be breaking them out any time soon.

If it actually a surgical mask, and not one of those cheap dust masks you can buy at Home Depot, then http://www.livescience.com/health/090126-flu-mask.html. I have read, and it makes sense, that it's more effective for infected people to wear surgical masks if the virus is spread through sneezing and coughing. The droplet size decreases as it travels away from the infected person's mouth/nose, making a surgical mask less and less effective.

They are more effective at preventing the mask wearer from spreading the virus than the other way around.

The other thing a mask does is that it encourages people to stay away from you because they assume you'll get them sick. Try wearing one in a crowded mall during the December holiday season. People avoid you and really make you feel sub-human with their dirty looks, even if you're wearing it for your own protection and aren't sick. It's quite humiliating. However, it causes less personal contact with others, which can help prevent disease. This is not just anecdotal personal evidence, there was also an article in the New York Times about this phenomenon a few months ago.

k8lin, don't take people's looks personally. You have nothing to feel humiliated about when you wear a surgical mask in public. I'm immuno-compromised and wear them in public whenever I have to take public transportation or anticipate being in large crowds. I've been doing this for 5 years now and have only had a few people ask about it. When I notice the looks from people, they're frequently more puzzled than hostile. When people have inquired about my mask, they've been very understanding and pretty cool about it.

I have H1N1 right now, and it's looking like it's moving towards pneumonia. I've been given and told to wear (plastic?) lined surgical masks if I leave the house. The masks aren't to protect the wearer, they are to protect people *from* the wearer. I don't know how effective they really are, other than making sure people give you a really wide berth. Also, the nice policemen who stop you when you're speeding home to visit the porcelain gods, will put their lights on and lead you home when you tell them why you're wearing a mask, which is an added bonus, I suppose.

Here in Ontario, the health authority says no. Reason being that most people use them improperly due to discomfort, and end up contaminating them with their hands anyway.

I think the viruses people get nervous about (flu) are transferred via the hands to the mouth and nose. I guess a mask might prevent accidental contact with those areas, but overall my understanding is it's not going to help much. The UK's http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pandemic-flu/pages/QA.aspx#facemask1, more or less.

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090916/best-swine-flu-mask-n95-respirator, which makes a distinction between surgical masks and N95 masks:Results showed that surgical masks are not effective against illness or infection, MacIntyre says. ... N95 masks, on the other hand, were 56% effective against lab-confirmed respiratory viral infections and 75% protective against confirmed influenza.I don't know that the N95 masks are comfortable enough to wear long term when traveling though. They are pretty tight.