A quiet inclusion that #Covid19 is #airborne and trying to move on is not enough. It is okay to admit you were wrong if you want people to trust you ever again. Not doing so leads to unfair situations 1/
I am focusing on one such situation here that I shall refer to as droplet masking vs aerosol masking 2/
Masks under your nose - breathing, in itself also generates aerosols. It does not have to be big drops expelled from your mouth. So, cover both mouth and nose 3/
Masks need to fit snugly. Just wearing it is not enough, since it is not about blocking big droplets. Adjust the mask to fit your facial features
Keep your mask safe - wearing them around your arms, shoulders is not good for the elastic and a loose ear loop means it is not protecting you enough 5/
Mask up and keep quiet. Speaking not only produces more aerosols, it also intervenes with mask fit. But thinking in terms of droplets, these points would not occur to one. Image from Singapore MRT 6/
Facial hair makes a difference for aerosol leakage. If you want fit-tested respirators, you will need to shave off any facial hair that could interfere with the seal. But even for everyday masks, facial hair can make a difference. Trim up and help your masks do their job 7/
One of the issues that cropped up and has stayed with us due to the initial confusion regarding masking is masks protect others, but they can also protect you. Not all masks are equally good at that, but every mask is better than no mask 8/ doi.org/10.1021/acsnanβ¦
Cloth masks are way worse than respirators. The idea is to use them as a community measure can work when we rely on everyone wearing one so that we have both inward and outward protection. Even so, they are not ideal for high exposure jobs, including HCWs. 9/
But we do not need to promote masks just as an altruistic measure - wear it for the community. No, wear it for yourself as well. In fact, wear a better mask to protect yourself and community better 10/
A short thread explaining #airborne precautions for a #layered approach of mitigation against #COVID19
Keep in mind that multiple layers is a key need. The more layers, the lower your risk 1/
2) Source elimination is always the first step we think of when dealing with an #airborne problem - no risk without an actual source in the space.
Again, these steps need not be perfect, but they reduce the chances of an infectious person being in the room.
3) Source control - when we cannot eliminate the source, we try to control it. It could be direct - like masks, use packed lunches, and it could be indirect like keeping a control on community levels using vaccination and surveillance like waste water testing
Dose makes the risk - more the inhaled dose, more the risk of infection. These are screenshots of a slide deck made with pointers from @CorsIAQ and @ayushumd
A 𧡠1/
2) Risk of infection can be related to the inhaled dose. This helps to understand mitigation measures at a very simple and basic level. The slides were intended for high school students
3) Start with a dessert - in this case, an Indian dessert. If you are a bigger sweet tooth than me, you must want lots of spoons of sugar, right?
A few days back, I posted this graphic that created quite some interest and confusion too. So, trying to put it together in more than 240 characters now - 𧡠1/
2) The original idea came from ACGIH, trying to stress the point that essential worker, beyond healthcare, also need better masks, better respiratory protection.
3) Their assumption was that if without masks, it takes 15 minutes for a vulnerable person to inhale enough virus loaded particles to get infected, under the same conditions, how much can masks delay this time needed to reach infectious dose.
Oh, thank you for disillusioning us. I thought modern medicine already had solved the problem of immortality and all of us were just too smug to consider it 1/
The problem with statements like this is they want to reduce medicine into disease care and forget about health care. 2/
If small measures like living in well ventilated spaces, wearing a mask when not feeling well, filtering air when there are pollutants can help keep people healthy, they are worth investing in, pandemic or not 3/
Few days back, came across the thought that future generations will be surprised that we could manage a vaccine for a pandemic so quickly and yet could not manage equitable distribution for the vaccine. A 𧡠on potentially what else about the pandemic would surprise 1/
2) That it took so long for public health bodies to accept the fact that a respiratory tract infection, that can be exhaled by infected individuals, can also be inhaled by vulnerable individuals.
3) That the idea of #filtering the air we breathe (#masking) could be so controversial
The word Swaraj is a sacred word, a Vedic word, meaning self-rule and self-restraint, and not freedom from all restraint... - M K Gandhi
"Freedom" should mean freedom to wear a mask to protect the society you are part of
"Freedom" should mean the self-restraint to stay indoors if you do not need to go out
"Freedom" should mean avoiding crowding to protect yourself and others