CMAAO CORONA FACTS and MYTH BUSTER 110: Wear face mask at home, patients with diarrhea ? super spreader

CMAAO CORONA FACTS and MYTH BUSTER 110: Wear face mask at home, patients with diarrhea ? super spreader

Dr K K Aggarwal

President CMAAO

With inputs from Dr Monica Vasudev

934: Wear Face Masks at Home if you deal with public AND are people with diarrhea super spreaders

I have been saying about this and now a study has proven the same. During lock down wear mask when you go to buy essentials but after lockdown wear mask when you go for work involving meeting with [public or colleagues.

Now a new study conducted in China says wearing face masks at home greatly reduces a person’s risk of catching the coronavirus -- a major escalation from the most common advice on the cloth coverings, which is that they should be worn in public when social distancing can’t be practiced.

Researchers interviewed 335 people from 124 families in Beijing between late February and late March about their households during the pandemic. Each family had one confirmed case of coronavirus. The average family had four people, and most families had three generations.

Most person-to-person transmission occurred within households. Wearing face masks in the same house was 79% effective at curbing transmission, but only before symptoms emerge. Wearing masks really wasn’t protective after the symptoms started.

The daily use of chlorine or ethanol-based disinfectant was 77% effective at curbing transmission in the household.

This study confirms the highest risk of household transmission being prior to symptom onset, but that precautionary [non-pharmaceutical interventions], such as mask use, disinfection and social distancing in households can prevent COVID-19 transmission during the pandemic

BMJ Global health, the medical journal published the study. If the first person to become infected had diarrhea, the risk of passing the virus quadrupled.

Having close daily contact with the first person infected, such as eating meals or watching television together, had an 18-fold increased risk.

Overall, the study supports “universal face mask use, not just in public spaces, but also at home.