Common face mask use mistakes

Let’s take a look at some common issues regarding face mask use:

• A mask is worn upside down, only over the nose, not pulled under the chin, or worn only over the mouth, leaving the nose exposed. Even the best mask won’t protect if worn incorrectly.

• A user constantly touching and fiddling with the mask’s filter surface, which cross-contaminates fingers and subsequent surfaces. A contaminated finger will cross-contaminate the next SEVEN surfaces it touches, e.g. phones, ipads, keypads.

• Pulling a face mask under the chin for conversation or eating, and then putting the mask back up again.

• Reusing or recycling masks. This has been a common and dangerous emerging practice in Hong Kong since January 2020.

• Wearing the same mask for too long. The length of time that a face mask could be safely worn depends on the number of people a user has been around. The outer layer of a mask is the ultimate barrier. Like a fishing net, it will filter but also accumulate pathogens, without inactivating or killing them. The longer a mask has been worn around others, the more concentrated the infectious load becomes. A face mask should never be worn longer than a day; a doctor or nurse will go through multiple masks during a single work shift.

• Used masks are not disposed of quickly and appropriately. Used masks have a build-up of potentially infectious particulates that could include coronavirus and other pathogens, and if left around, they can cross-contaminate previously clean areas.

• Using a counterfeit face mask. The gold standard for surgical face masks is ASTM-F2100. But there are many masks that look similar, made of cheap materials that do not meet that standard and do not provide an adequate barrier against disease. Only buy from reputable sellers; face masks made from substandard material abound online.

• Relying on N95 masks. When worn properly, these respirator masks get very hot inside and are very difficult to breathe in due to the pressure change between the air inside and the outside atmosphere. It is like breathing through a blanket and can become distressing to the user. A user’s blood-oxygen saturation can drop and carbon dioxide increases significantly with correct and prolonged use. Even a healthy and fit adult could find wearing an N95, if put on correctly, difficult after an hour or so of use. An older person or an immunocompromised individual likely would have a very hard time using an N95 mask even for a short time. Wearers may take it off for a break which would reduce its protection. Children and infants are also generally not appropriate candidates for wearing N95s as the risk of suffocation is higher.