The shelves are already empty, and the individuals who need personal protective equipment (PPE) the most will feel the impacts. Dread and frenzy are making individuals from the open buy and store covers and other PPE supplies, and people are paying top dollar for them.
Late last week the World Health Organization (WHO) discharged Interim Guidance for the Rational use of personal protective equipment for corona virus illness 2019 (COVID-19).
Based on the available evidence, the COVID-19 infection is transmitted between individuals through close contact and beads, not via airborne transmission. The individuals most in danger of disease are the individuals who are in close contact with a COVID-19 patient or who care for COVID-19 patients (WHO, February 27, 2020).
Indeed, even the U.S. Surgeon General is urging the public to stop buying face masks. As clinicians, we realize what lies ahead if there is a shortage of appropriate PPE, yet how about we separate the realities so we can teach people around us. This is what we know:
Coronavirus is spread through contact and beads, not airborne transmission.
Particulate respirators, including N95 veils, are demonstrated to ensure against airborne transmission of infection.
Proper use of N95 covers requires fit testing.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests the utilization of N95 veils by social insurance laborers at the “highest risk of contracting or experiencing complications of infection.”
Notwithstanding health care workers, the use of proper face masks is essential for those straightforwardly thinking about somebody in close settings, including homes, and compromised people.
By depleting supplies, those directly caring for patients with irresistible ailment – including COVID-19 – will be in danger for infection themselves and can add to its spread.
Wearing masks unnecessarily can add to a false sense of security, causing lapses in different measures, for example, hand washing, which has demonstrated on numerous occasions to be the best technique of decreasing infectious disease risk and spread.
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