A new set of measures comes into force with a special directive on masks to be worn in supermarkets and public transport.
On Thursday afternoon, the government announced about new measuresthat will be implemented during the holidays. Among them – the restoration of the mandatory wearing of masks indoors and outdoors.
However, for supermarkets and public transport, special measures are taken for masks. In particular, the leadership of the Ministry of Health announced that, especially for closed areas of supermarkets or public transport, the use of a double mask or a mask of increased protection N95 (KN95) is mandatory.
These are masks of type N95 or KN95 (degree of protection FFP2) that fit snugly to the face without leaving gaps (as is the case with cloth or some surgical masks). They can be purchased in pharmacies and on the Internet, but you need to be careful when choosing a store, as there are also models that are made from low-quality materials.
Research claims that the correct use of a KN95 mask can reduce your risk of contracting coronavirus by 99%. In particular, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics in Gittingen, led by Eberhard Bodensack and Golamhossein Bagheri, have found that FFP2 or KN95 masks are particularly effective.
In the event that two people without masks are talking at a distance of three meters, and one has a coronavirus with a typical viral load, the risk of infecting the other after a few minutes is up to 90%. If they are at a distance of one and a half meters and only a person without the virus wears a surgical mask, the risk of infection will again increase to 90%, but after a longer time (after 30 minutes). But if he wears an FFP2 mask, his risk of infection does not exceed 20% even after an hour of being together.
When both speak in surgical masks, the risk of infection of the latter does not exceed 30% after an hour, and if both wear masks with increased protection, the risk of infection is 0.4% (four chances in a thousand).
Thus, the researchers concluded that a properly applied FFP2 or KN95 mask provides 75 times more protection than a properly applied surgical mask.
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