Hyderabad: Health experts have opined that the best way to avoid Omicron is to wear two masks while out in the open and get two doses of vaccination. While a surgical three-ply mask and a N95 mask would be ideal, those wearing a cloth mask should also have a surgical mask, medical professionals said.
Though the market has been flooded with various types of masks, medical experts state that most of them provide limited protection from Covid.
According to Dr. Nagendra, superintendent of Osmania General Hospital, double masks or N-95 are best protectors.
“A disposable mask can be worn for about eight hours and the N-95 mask for 24 hours. Unfortunately, post the second wave many people are moving around without a mask, which could be catastrophic. The youth especially need to be told about the importance of masks and transmission of viruses. We have to be very careful with the new variant,” he said.
A data released by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) states that the time required for the infectious dose to reach an individual from an infected person and both are wearing an N-95 mask is 1,667 hours of exposure to alpha variant of SARS-COV2. If the N-95 mask is well fitted in both cases, research indicates that it requires 677 hours of exposure to reach an infectious dose. However, the time required to reach an infectious dose for an individual from an infected individual if neither are wearing a mask is 10 minutes.
The time required increases to 14 minutes with the vulnerable person wearing a cloth mask, 20 minutes with a surgical mask, 50 minutes with a N-95 mask and 16.7 hours if the vulnerable person is wearing a well-fitted N-95 mask when the infectious person is not wearing a mask.
