Speaker 1: It's Thursday, April two. I'm Oscar Ramirez from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is your daily
Speaker 1: coronavirus update. The CDC is considering recommendations for people to
Speaker 1: wear face masks while out in public. Previously, the recommendation
Speaker 1: was not to buy any masks, as medical workers needed
Speaker 1: them and they were in short supply. But we have
Speaker 1: gotten to the point where we need to step up
Speaker 1: efforts to stop the spread of coronavirus. Masks reduced the
Speaker 1: spread of infectious disease by catching microbes expelled by the
Speaker 1: wearer and also protecting them from outside microbes. And while
Speaker 1: they might not catch everything, there's a strong case we
Speaker 1: should all be wearing masks during a pandemic. Farris Jaber,
Speaker 1: writer for Wired, joins us for how wearing face masks
Speaker 1: could help. Thanks for joining us, Farris, Yes, thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. We're gonna be talking about face masks.
Speaker 1: The CDC is considering recommending the general public start wearing
Speaker 1: face coverings in public. There's been a lot of back
Speaker 1: and forth, obviously when this whole pandemic started, especially here
Speaker 1: in the United States. The officials worth telling people don't
Speaker 1: buy face mask because there was a critical shortage for
Speaker 1: medical workers that needed them. Then they said, hey, if
Speaker 1: you're sick, maybe you should wear, but if you're healthy,
Speaker 1: you don't need to. Now all of this is changing,
Speaker 1: The guidelines might be changing very soon. But Farris, you
Speaker 1: wrote an article about how it's kind of time to
Speaker 1: face it, face the facts that masks do work even
Speaker 1: if they're not effective. What they do provide could help
Speaker 1: help the spread of the COVID nineteen as we're experiencing
Speaker 1: it right now. So in other words, any little bit
Speaker 1: helps kind of thing. Uh, Farris tells us a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that. That's right. So that the official
Speaker 1: guidance from the CDC and the WHO has been that
Speaker 1: masks are not effective when it comes to the general public.
Speaker 1: That they are effective for healthcare workers, but there's not
Speaker 1: really strong evidence that they can help prevent members of
Speaker 1: the general public from getting a respiratory illness. But when
Speaker 1: you really look at the evidence as a whole, well,
Speaker 1: I think there is pretty pretty compelling reasons that members
Speaker 1: of the general public should wear masks as well. Um,
Speaker 1: And so there's different kinds of mass that kind of
Speaker 1: get lumped together. Sometimes the N nine respirators are the
Speaker 1: most efficient and effective, and those are the ones that
Speaker 1: are really essential for for healthcare workers who perform procedures
Speaker 1: that generate these really tiny respiratory droplets that are difficult
Speaker 1: to filter out. And for most people, that level of
Speaker 1: protection is not necessary because we're not constantly in contact
Speaker 1: with infected people the way that doctors and nurses are.
Speaker 1: And then the second level is a surgical mask, which
Speaker 1: is usually a soft pleated rectangle, and those work really
Speaker 1: well um too. And then doctors and nurses use those
Speaker 1: all the time as well when they're not doing high
Speaker 1: risk procedures. But unfortunately, right now in the US and
Speaker 1: many other countries, there's simply two massive shortage of nine
Speaker 1: and surgical masks for the public to use those. You know,
Speaker 1: any any new ones that are produced really should be
Speaker 1: going to hospitals and healthcare workers. So the best option
Speaker 1: for everybody else right now is to make fabric masks
Speaker 1: at home UM. And there are a few studies that
Speaker 1: have examined how well fabric masks work against influenza and
Speaker 1: other respiratory diseases, and the answer is not as well
Speaker 1: as surgical masks and nine, but still surprisingly well. They
Speaker 1: definitely provide some protection. And if you know, there's increasing
Speaker 1: evidence that with COVID there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are infected but don't realize it. They don't have noticeable symptoms,
Speaker 1: so they could be out and about on their essential tasks,
Speaker 1: buying food or medicine, spreading the virus without realizing it
Speaker 1: because they don't feel that anything is wrong. So if
Speaker 1: everybody puts on a mask, that could powerfully reduce the
Speaker 1: risk of transmitting the virus. And that's exactly why the
Speaker 1: guidelines might be changing. It's for these people that are
Speaker 1: asymptomatic that could be spreading it and not knowing it.
Speaker 1: Most of these droplets, these respiratory droplets that get thrown
Speaker 1: out there. It happens when you're talking, but mostly when
Speaker 1: you're offing or sneezing. Is when they're gonna be traveling
Speaker 1: distances that could be dangerous to people. You were talking
Speaker 1: about some studies that were done on different types of
Speaker 1: masks and and and alternatives. There was one that came
Speaker 1: out in ten where scientists compared the filtration efficiency of
Speaker 1: the surgical mask to Linen's a silk scarf, kitchen towel
Speaker 1: vacuum cleaner bags. Tell us how that one turned out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's an interesting study which has been cited a lot,
Speaker 1: because they really looked at quite a wide variety of
Speaker 1: homemade materials, you know, a household materials a lot of
Speaker 1: people would have access to. And um, the vacuum cleaner
Speaker 1: bag turned out to be the second best after the
Speaker 1: surgical mass because it is so dense and tightly woven.
Speaker 1: But the problem is that it's really uncomfortable to wear
Speaker 1: a vacuum cleaner bag over your face for a long
Speaker 1: period of time. Just so they ended up favoring the
Speaker 1: cotton T shirt and the kitchen towel because those are
Speaker 1: both fairly dense but still breathable and still comfortable. They
Speaker 1: have some allow asticity to them, and they really, they
Speaker 1: really thought that a homemade mask mean out of a
Speaker 1: cotton T shirt was the best option. Um. I recently
Speaker 1: heard someone doing something kind of clever. So certain certain
Speaker 1: homemade fabric masks that you can buy on Etsy or
Speaker 1: that people are making in their communities have a pocket
Speaker 1: in them, and some people will buy a manufactured filter.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of like a little path that you
Speaker 1: slip into that pocket. But somebody said that they put
Speaker 1: a vacuum cleaner bag or part of one inside that pocket,
Speaker 1: which I think is a pretty good idea. It's worth trying.
Speaker 1: As long as you can breathe through it, that's okay.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't want to impede your breathing too much,
Speaker 1: but you want to get something that's that's pretty tight
Speaker 1: and dense to be able to block out those particles.
Speaker 1: When I saw that part of that study, I mean
Speaker 1: I immediately chuckled a little bit because I remember the
Speaker 1: big vacuum bags from when I was a kid, you know,
Speaker 1: having to do chores, and it's like, I mean, have
Speaker 1: to put a whole bag on my head for this
Speaker 1: to work. But okay, So the question is, uh, you
Speaker 1: know these ninety five and the surgical masks, they have
Speaker 1: filters in them. If people need to make one at home,
Speaker 1: you know, out of a T shirt, claws, other claws
Speaker 1: or whatever. What should they be doing for that filter
Speaker 1: to to be able to filter out as much as
Speaker 1: they can? Right? So, the filter that's used in nine
Speaker 1: surgical masks is a really special kind of material. It's
Speaker 1: usually called melt blown fabric or or spun fabric, and
Speaker 1: it's basically cotton, candy, plastic. It's you know, it's extremely
Speaker 1: tiny filaments of plastic and it's produced by machines that
Speaker 1: cost millions of dollars to construct, and their massive, massive machines,
Speaker 1: so it's really difficult to replicate that kind of material exactly.
Speaker 1: So you know, still okay though, to just have cotton
Speaker 1: or just have a towel over your face, because the
Speaker 1: idea really is to catch the brunt of a cough
Speaker 1: or a sneeze. You know, there's there's all these large
Speaker 1: globs of mucus that are visible that you're going to
Speaker 1: catch and stop, and those all contain virus in them
Speaker 1: and as well, so you don't you don't only have
Speaker 1: to prevent the really tiny particles with with a special
Speaker 1: manufactured filter. But some people you know that will try
Speaker 1: to find these uh sort of filter replacements that are
Speaker 1: meant to be slipped inside fabric masks. Um there, you
Speaker 1: know they were. I think they're more common Asian than
Speaker 1: they are in the West, but they are sort of
Speaker 1: out there and some people will find them online. But
Speaker 1: that I don't, you know, it's really not necessary I
Speaker 1: think it from most people, it's it's okay just to
Speaker 1: have one or two layers of cotton or another another
Speaker 1: suitable material. That's basically where we've gotten to this point.
Speaker 1: Early on they said, hey, don't buy the masks, medical
Speaker 1: professionals need them, and you're not going to wear it
Speaker 1: right either, and you're gonna be touching your face. But
Speaker 1: we've gotten to this point where we really want to
Speaker 1: stem the flow of this spread. And at this point
Speaker 1: anything helps, you know, just as you mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: even wearing some cotton T shirt is going to catch
Speaker 1: at least the biggest parts of a coffer a sneeze.
Speaker 1: And so this is the point that we're at and
Speaker 1: this is why these recommendations might be changing. That's right,
Speaker 1: and it's a good point to bring up the use
Speaker 1: of mass because it does make a big difference in
Speaker 1: how effective they are. And you know, there are some
Speaker 1: basic guidelines to follow, just as there are you know
Speaker 1: with handwashing, and it's it's really not that difficult to learn.
Speaker 1: I think the most important things to remember is that
Speaker 1: when you should you really have to treat the mask
Speaker 1: like something that is very sterile and sanitized. So when
Speaker 1: you when you before you put it on, wash your hands.
Speaker 1: Once you have it on your face, go out and
Speaker 1: do whatever you have to do, and do not touch
Speaker 1: the mask, don't fidget with it, don't take it off
Speaker 1: for anything, just leave it alone. When you come back home,
Speaker 1: remove the mask by the strings or the ear loops.
Speaker 1: Do not touch the front piece, which is probably caught
Speaker 1: microbes in it, and then immediately sanitize that by putting
Speaker 1: it into a hot wash. If it's a fabric mask,
Speaker 1: or if you've made a disposable paper mask, just throw
Speaker 1: it away immediately. And that those are really the basic
Speaker 1: steps you need to know to make sure that you're
Speaker 1: not accidentally contaminating yourself with the mass. There was a
Speaker 1: line you put in your article that says, the collective
Speaker 1: evidence makes a strong case for universal mask wearing a pandemic,
Speaker 1: and there was two things that you mentioned throughout the article.
Speaker 1: You know, if you look at photos of Americans during
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighteen influenza pandemic, which a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been referencing as of lately because of this, you know,
Speaker 1: you see a lot of photos people are all wearing masks.
Speaker 1: And then beyond that, culturally, in Japan, it's rude if
Speaker 1: you're not wearing one if you're sick, because you don't
Speaker 1: want to get other people sick. I just was on
Speaker 1: a trip to Japan in December, right before all of
Speaker 1: this started, and yeah, they're everywhere, and it's just a
Speaker 1: normal practice for them. Coupled all this together, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it very much does make the case for when something
Speaker 1: is going around like this, we should be protecting ourselves,
Speaker 1: even if it's not with an end ninety five or
Speaker 1: a surgical mass specifically exactly. And it's really interesting that,
Speaker 1: you know, Japan and some of the other Asian countries
Speaker 1: which have had repeated experiences with epidemics and pandemics that
Speaker 1: we haven't had here in the US and scient eighteen,
Speaker 1: they are the countries where mask wearing is much more
Speaker 1: culturally ingrained. And they're also of the countries that are
Speaker 1: handling this pandemic a lot better. They're having much better
Speaker 1: outcomes so far. And it's absolutely true there's many other
Speaker 1: factors at play. You know that they've acted faster, they've
Speaker 1: acted more rigorously. Um but a lot of people think
Speaker 1: the maths are a big part of that as well.
Speaker 1: And it's also interesting that in nineteen eighteen, it was
Speaker 1: actually America's widespread use of mass that originally inspired Japan
Speaker 1: to start doing the same, which seems so odd today
Speaker 1: because it's so culturally ingrained there and so foreign and
Speaker 1: almost taboo here. But Japanese health authorities were directly inspired
Speaker 1: by Americans recommending that everybody wrapped their faces and gauze. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody's gonna be seeing a lot of guides
Speaker 1: online for how to make your own masks. I've already
Speaker 1: seen a bunch, but I'm sure there's going to be
Speaker 1: increased posts regarding that. I'm sure we'll start getting it
Speaker 1: together on that front. I don't know if it will
Speaker 1: ever become a cultural thing here in the United States,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely something to watch out for, at least
Speaker 1: on that right. Farris Jaber, writer for Wired, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for joining us. Thank you. I'm Oscar Ramirez
Speaker 1: and this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that.
Speaker 1: For today's big news stories, you can check me out
Speaker 1: on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So
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