You Need to Upgrade Your Mask Now: Here’s How
Facing the more contagious coronavirus requires better fit and filtering, or doubling up, and watching out for fakes
With the coronavirus evolving to be more contagious, it might take fewer virus particles to make you sick. Just maintaining the same level of protection you had against the initial strain therefore requires a more effective mask. But the choices are bewildering, ranging from the gold-standard N95s to highly effective surgical masks to a slew of reusable options that range from good to fraudulent.
“We use N95 masks in the hospital, and I’ve taken care of more Covid patients than I can count,” says Abraar Karan, MD, an internal medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “Many of them were not wearing masks and coughed right in my face, and I never got infected.”
Problem is, a year into the pandemic, N95s remain in short supply even for health care workers. Karan and other experts say the federal government needs to fast-track an existing plan to develop standards for testing, manufacturing, and distributing effective masks for the broader public — a plan still thought to be months from fruition.
