Article w/ tips on childrens' masks, by @BetsyMorris2. (🧵 & info, 1/x)
My quotes didn’t make article cut, but I agree w/ many others who have said priority order is: 1) Wearability (quality irrelevant if kid won’t wear) 2) Tight fit 3) Filtration quality wsj.com/articles/findi…
2/ In the context of kid masks, it’s worth following @masknerd and looking through great contributions he has made to provide test data & evaluations of various adult and kid masks:
4/ @coolmompicks runs a blog of useful info for kids and families and recently gathered some info from various infographics & following the latest CDC guidance on masks.
Just remember to make all masks fit tightly!
6/ @ProjectN95 is non-profit focused on providing PPE and resources to hospitals and the public. A great resource for all things related to masks. They offer some KN95 and KF94 options suitable for kids, and they also vet masks & can answer questions shop.projectn95.org/all/
7/ Various discussions & summary threads lately about kid masks. Here are just a few for more perusing:
🔥 by @DrAliceVirgil1 in @PsychToday. She argues indoor school meals are not only dangerous during COVID, but further destabilize a sense of truth and reality among gaslit students.
2/ "The term gaslighting comes from the 1944 film Gaslight ... invalidating her reality and understanding of her experiences."
"Trust in the person or entity doing the gaslighting is essential for it to be an effective tool to undermine a person’s entire perception of reality."
3/ "Yet, every day in countless lunchrooms across America, as both the New York and Chicago school districts have noted, children are eating and talking loudly, unmasked, in crowded indoor spaces without proper ventilation."
2/ Also important: N95s are not limited due to a supply chain shortage. True for months and why the CDC finally updated their guidance yesterday. @projectn95 is a non-profit that provides a marketplace for vetted masks at low price: shop.projectn95.org/all/
3/ Any mask is better than no mask, but given the highly contagious Delta variant that now dominates, you should wear the best mask you can. See this great interview clip with @mtosterholm motivating the use of upgraded masks:
2/ Parents here realized that if adults need to be very careful w/ indoor dining when masks are off, so do school kids during lunch. @HeidiNBC: "Here's what they do. It's not hard. They open these doors, the kids come out."
3/ #DrFauci today" "You have pretty good prevention measures at the time you’re in the class or working, and then you let your guard down when you get a lunchbreak and you take your mask off, b/c you have to take your mask off to eat."
ICYMI, @By_CJewett did an excellent job last week on #ScienceFriday w/ @iraflatow. Worth a 14-min listen on key points about air cleaners for school & elsewhere.
2/ I think this bit from @By_CJewett takes it home:
"Your HEPA filter is kind of like a pair of kaki pants or a garden hose. It's not on-patent, it's not expensive, it's not that hard to find, and there's not a salesforce for it." soundcloud.com/scifri/are-hig…
3/ "But what you do see is the more electronic air cleaners. Those are the companies going to the school boards, talking about ionization ... they sound spectacular"
2/ (14:40) "My biggest concern is lunchtime. Eating in a cafeteria is my pandemic nightmare scenario. In order to eat you have to remove your mask. There are hundreds of kids in there together. They're seated closely together at these long tables. Everyone's trying to talk ..."
3/ "... and be heard. That's kind of the worst possible situation. Crowding. Close together. Loud talking. You release aerosols and droplets when you talk, and the louder you talk the more you release. ..."
- Can we pls take school precautions seriously?
- Kids <12 yrs unvaxxed & vulnerable
- Don't take off your mask (to read aloud)!
- Wear a (good) mask **correctly** 👇 cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7…
2/ This MMWR report ⬆️ seems scary & catches attention. Good. We need to pay attention.
- Delta is very contagious & kids get sick
- Vax is critical for everyone possible
- But vax isn't silver bullet alone. Even vaxxed can transmit
The good news next ... medrxiv.org/content/10.110…
3/ #Schools can help w/ layers:
- Good, tight masks reduce room risk & at inhale
- Also distance, good ventilation, room filtration, outside meals
Risky w/ unvaxxed kids in schools at all -- but no question if schools & teachers don't take this seriously