The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced guideline changes allowing most Americans to unmask indoors, which health experts said may be the first step in shifting the USA to an “endemic phase” of the COVID-19 pandemic. The agency said in a news briefing Friday afternoon it will use different metrics […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued long-awaited new guidance Friday on when Americans should consider wearing masks to protect themselves against Covid-19. Under the new guidance, roughly 70% of the U.S. population can now contemplate removing their masks. The guidance lays out a system that designates individual counties as being […]
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance on face masks, saying loosely woven cloth masks offer the least protection against COVID-19 and N95 and KN95 masks offer the most. The CDC update doesn’t come out and say Americans should avoid cloth masks but clarifies that some kinds […]
A type of mask used by healthcare providers to protect themselves from the coronavirus can be reprocessed to augment supplies, researchers believe. Unlike cloth and surgical masks, the N95 respirators are designed to achieve a very snug facial fit, with edges that form a tight seal around the nose and […]
Added information to present similar content for masks and respirators Clarified that people can choose respirators such as N95s and KN95s, including removing concerns related to supply shortages for N95s Clarified that “surgical N95s” are a specific type of respirator that should be reserved for healthcare settings Clarified that some […]
The rapid spread of the omicron variant means that many medical and public health experts are urging Americans to adopt better masking protocols to protect themselves and others from the spread of Covid-19. Masking best practices have changed since the beginning of the pandemic, and confusion still abounds about which mask to […]
Due to the growing wave of infection from the omicron variant and the urgent need to strengthen all layers of protection against COVID-19, Mayo Clinic is asking all patients and visitors to wear surgical/procedural masks. Several studies have demonstrated the variability in cloth mask performance. While a high-quality cloth mask may perform similarly […]
High-quality respirators such as N95s and KN95s are now widely available and provide the best protection against COVID, according to experts. Why aren’t more people wearing them? A wealth of evidence has shown that wearing a face mask helps prevent people from spreading the virus that causes COVID, SARS-CoV-2, to […]
A wealth of evidence has shown that wearing a face mask helps prevent people from spreading the virus that causes COVID, SARS-CoV-2, to others and from becoming sick themselves. But there has been less guidance from public health officials on what kind of masks provide the best protection. Early on in the […]
To fight the spread of COVID-19, many places now require people to wear face masks. But the advice on wearing them has changed over the course of the pandemic. This has led some people to question: Do face masks even protect against COVID-19? “Yes, absolutely,” says Dr. Adriaan Bax, a […]
