Using a Face Mask? These 5 Most Common Mask Mistakes Can Give You COVID
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
The above quote also stands true for people who want to stay safe from COVID-19. Since pandemic is spreading at the community level in most of the countries, many people who are taking almost all of the precautions are also getting infected. Here is a list of most common mask mistakes I found that leads to face mask users getting infected with COVID.
People who are taking almost all of the precautions are also getting infected with COVID.
My reasons are not coming from anywhere random. Being the only PhD most of my friends and relatives know, I have been contacted by multiple people since this COVID pandemic started. I have personally spoken to hundreds of people and help them not just stay safe but calm as well.
But of late, some of them have contacted coronavirus while taking all precautions they think they could. Additionally, I’m running a blog named Life with Coronavirus on safety measures for COVID and some people replied there including the mode by which they think how they got infected. Some of these include mask mistakes.
The last and biggest source of my information is Quora and Facebook. I’ve been reading about COVID experience on Facebook groups and in Quora answers. Recently, I also started noting down if someone stated any reason they think they got infected.
Here is my short graph from 46 such replies. Many people stated multiple possibilities, so the total will be more than 46. I agree 46 is a very small number. But I’m not including numbers where people got infected from the person they share house or people who don't use the mask in top 5 reasons.
Based on this analysis, here is a list of top 5 mistakes that some people made with mask leading to them getting infected with the novel coronavirus.
- Removing mask in gathering
This seems to be the biggest reason for the spread of the pandemic. People think if they are not showing symptoms, they are okay. Everyone including those who are already infected thought they are fine before they came to know they are infected with the novel coronavirus. Here is an answer from a person who shared the story in my blog:
It's obvious in parties people don’t cover the face, else how will they eat and drink. Same applies to restaurants and pubs. Or visiting someone's home. Even small meetings. These are the main reasons behind so rapid spread of COVID-19.
Parties, meetings and short visits to friends/relatives seem to be the biggest spreader events. Especially if you are removing your face cover.
Solution:
Please don't eat/drink in gatherings and avoid removing your mask if other people who don't share living space with you are around. Just 6 feet distance can not save you, especially in the indoor conditions.
2. Another person not using the mask
Of late, this is becoming clear that infected person covering mouth and nose provides more protection to others then the non-infected person using a mask. Although it does not mean face covers don’t protect a healthy person wearing it. Wearing a mask does reduce the chance of infection and surely reduces the initial viral load that may have a big role in the outcome of the disease.
Many people mentioned this also as a possible cause of infection. However, I should mention that most of these are people also said this happened in a gathering/party where nobody was covering the face.
Solution:
Eiter request others to cover the face, or stay away from such people as much as possible.
3. Sliding mask to neck
Being from a business based family most of my friends and relatives have a store or a shop. A common practice for many people is when nobody is around, they slide down the mask to the neck. Here is the snapshot of the comment of one such friend who thinks he got infected in this way and why he thinks that's the reason.
Not just with him, this was the answer from some of my friends and a few people of Facebook. This category also includes people who cover the face with just a cloth. When they remove it for some time, they keep it here and there and forget which side was outside. Many a time, when they wear it back the side which was outside gets inside, and they just inhale all the particles dropped on it.
Solution:
If people are coming in an enclosed space where you stay for a long time, avoid removing your face mask. Even if you have to remove it, first clean your hands well, remove it from the strap, fold it in a way that inner sides remain in and keep in a clean box. Don’t keep in your pocket else you may contaminate things in your pocket.
Make sure you wear it back with clean hands before someone comes close to you.
4. Bad cloth mask
A friend of mine was wearing a single layer cotton mask while another one was using a mask made of green colour cloth. Why green colour? He always saw in movies doctors using a green mask so he thought only green colour mask will protect from virus.
But these things apart, when the pandemic started one of the very first masks that came in the market were those stretchable cloth made single layer mask. But when they are worn, the cloth gets stretched leaving gaps in the mask. I have also seen some mask with respirator valves where there is no cloth layer/mesh in the valve. It’s a totally open space. People actually breathe through that valve and all droplets will run in and out of it.
Some people are still using all these types of masks. I believe when people said no proper mask, they either mean a homemade mask of a single layer or a bad material mask from the market.
Solution:
Either buy a good quality one or make a mask of at least three layers. The inner layer must be cotton, outer two layers must be polypropylene or at least silk or chiffon.
5. Loose mask
Not just quality, but the fitting of maks also is a big factor. People wear a loose mask and think they are safe. Either the mask is open below the chin, or is not fit near the nose. If you do this, the main purpose of your protection that air should come from the mask is not complete and you will ultimately breathe in what you were supposed to breathe without the mask.
It is very easy to test this issue.
Test 1:
If you have any doubt, wear big spectacles or sunglasses after wearing a face mask and blow air with moderate force. If you got vapour in spectacles, the air is passing from above. This works even better in cold or if the spectacles are cooled in a normal refrigerator for 2 minutes before doing this.
Test 2: If you have a doubt that your face mask is not fit from any side (usually it can be loose near the chin), you put a piece of light paper on that side, cover other sides and blow air from the mouth. If the paper moves, the mask is not fit.
Solution:
If you can’t tight it by stretching the strip, just put some cotton/thin cloth in the gaps that is enough to cover the gap but do not hurt you.
Additional mistakes you should avoid
- Don’t try and buy a mask. Not even to test the size. You may inhale virus left on face cover by people who tried before you.
- Don’t touch your mask with unclean hands. Always remove from the strap.
- Until we know if coronavirus can infect via eyes or not, it's better to cover eyes as well in crowded places.
- Disinfect your mask every day.
- If you are in a crowded place, change your mask every few hours. Better try to avoid crowded places.
- Sharing is caring but not for the face mask.
- Please don't use face masks with valves. Even if the claim to be N95. These masks don’t protect the community wile give equal protection as their valve-less counterparts.
Even if you avoid all these mistakes, it doesn’t give 100% protection. But it does significantly increase your chances of avoiding the infection. Add it with physical distancing and hand hygiene, and you have reduces the chance even more.
That’s all for this article guys. This is my first medium post, so give a clam if this was useful for you. I will keep posting for COVID awareness, so follow for those updates.
If you want to make a cloth face mask at your home, you can read this short article.
If you want to read more about other mask mistakes and tips, you can read my blog here.
