Hey guys it is the middle of summer as I'm recording this video for you and we
are in the middle of a covid pandemic and nobody wants to be wearing a cloth
mask outside on a hot day but the reality is in many places cloth masks
have become a mandated which means you need to wear one to protect others when
you're outside. So we're going to dive into the research on cloth masks
particularly what makes the best cloth mask, how helpful are they, and are they
really working. We're going to answer those questions right after this. Welcome
back my name is Tammy and this is NurseMinder and on this channel we do
everything nursing so if you're new here consider subscribing below so that you
get the next video when it's released. Now before we get started into the video
on cloth masks I do want to just talk quickly about the difference between a
surgical mask and a cloth mask because in my video on how to wear a surgical
mask I'll put the link up here for you there's a lot of questions about how -
these are a lot of comments about how these do not protect yourself. That
they're meant to protect others only and that's a real big misunderstandin. The
surgical mask is designed to protect both you the wearer and those
around you that's a little different from the cloth mask. Now cloth mask as
we're going to dissect here today, we're going to talk about the efficiency of
filtration and then we're going to talk about types of material that are better
than others but the filtration is really where the issue is in terms of
protecting you. The cloth mask is primarily designed to protect those
around you and I think that's where some of the confusion is coming when we talk
about face masks so I just wanted to put that out there. I want to go over some of the
research with you just to highlight what was found in the earlier years when this
research first began. Now the links for these studies will be in the description
box below so that you can access them but here we have a simple respiratory
protection evaluation of the filtration performance of cloth masks and common
fabric. So this study looked at five different types of materials they looked
at sweaters, t-shirts, towels, scarves and cloth masks and they were
focused on identifying the filtration capacity of these different materials for
particles that were nano sized particles including viruses and these are between
20 and 1000 nanometers we know about the size of COVID 19 is it's approximately
0.125 microns now in a micron there is 1000 nanometers so that means the kovat
virus is approximately 125 nanometers in size fitting into the study. At the end
of the study what they determined was that the materials used have anywhere
between a forty to ninety percent instantaneous penetration which means as
the patient wearing the testing material is being exposed to these potential
viruses, that penetrated the mask up to ninety percent of the time. What they did
find was that materials are made out of 100% cotton performed better that leads
me to the second study. Now the fun part of this study is that these masks were
test against surgical masks and not wearing a mask and the participants in
this study actually coughed into a box and they sampled that air for five
minutes in each of those three scenarios with the cloth mask, the surgical masks
and no masks and what they found was that both the surgical masks and the
cloth masks reduced the number of microbes expelled
during coughing. At the end of this study though they did recognize that the use
of a cloth mask would be an last resort when there is no access to surgical
masks but better than no mask. So this next question comes from T Hopkins on
the Instagram page where she asked what is the best material to make your mask
out of and what is the best design? From the research there are two things you
need to do with your material or your fabric. One is the light test so you want
to hold it up to the light and if you can see the light coming through it you
can actually sit the light fixture as you can see with the t-shirt and the
bandana that would not be a good material to choose but if that's all you
have that is better than nothing. The second thing you want to look for is the
thread count so quilters cotton has been repeatedly mentioned in the research and
in articles online as a preferred material to make your mask out of because of
the tight weave and the high quality of cotton so the higher the thread count
the better and of course once you're wearing it as soon as it starts to get
damp that redueces the efficiency of your mask and
you would want to change it out at that point. Now of course wearing a mask is
only one of three things that we need to be maintainin. It's really the trifecta,
the triangle of things that we need to put in place in order to really reduce
our risk of transmitting and catching Covid. Number one is hand hygiene.
Number two is social distancing and number three is wearing a mask. So Grace
on YouTube asked is there a proper way to wear a mask when you're outside
exercising? and the answer is yes the proper way to wear your mask is the same
as you would indoors when you're not exercising. The concern is about
breathability at this point so if you're using a really thick fabric you may have
a harder time breathing so you want to make sure that you can breathe through
your fabric while you're exercising. Now if you live somewhere where masking has
not been mandated yet you might be asking yourself should I start to wear
one? In order to help you make the decision as to whether should start to
wear a mask or not wear a mask in public we need to look again back to the
research. Let's begin with a recent release of a study that is meant to be
published in October of this year but we have the findings already from the CDC.
The effectiveness of cloth masks for protection against corona virus 2. Now
this study is looking at the use of cloth masks for health care providers
and for those in the community and focusing on the filtration effectiveness
and generally what they find is that they should not be recommended or
mandated for healthcare providers but that in the community settings cloth
masks may be used to prevent community spread of infections by the sick or the
asymptomatically infected patient. Now the reference a study done in 2015
where they were comparing cloth mask to medical masks. These cloth masks were
double layered cotton masks and they found that the rates of infections were
consistently higher with those who use the cloth mask than those using the
medical mask in a healthcare setting. Now they also examine the filtration ability
of cloth masks in 19 other previous studies and what they had found was that
the effectiveness of filtration of cloth masks is generally lower than that of
medical masks and that's probably not a surprise but of course there's many
factors to consider as we'd mentioned before such as thread count, the number
of layers, the type of fabric, and water resistance.
Now this study also suggests that cloth mass should be a last resort when
medical masks and respirators are not available. Now the general public can use
cloth masks to protect against infectious spread in the community and
there can be two ways this can be used: first as it can be used if you are sick
and you want to prevent the spread of infection and then the second is you may
use it if you're healthy to protect yourself from acquiring respiratory
infections. All right so what we're looking at here is a high-speed video
that is capturing the droplets when somebody is saying the words "stay
healthy". Now I have the sound muted the link will be down below for you to
to watch this in its full, and as they are saying "stay healthy" without a mask you
see these green particles and that's capturing the droplets. As soon as they go
to put on a mask and they repeat this phrase three times in each case the
droplets disappear. So that's showing you just how effective the mask is in
preventing the spread of droplets. So we definitely know that our masks are
helping to prevent the spread of COVID and other respiratory illnesses. Now I'm
also to include the link below in the description box that gives you direct
access to the instructions on how to make your own cloth mask using the
parameters that have been established in these studies. Until next time make it a
great day. Hey I know you're probably not ready to
get off your phone or go back to work just yet or maybe even turn the lights
off to go to sleep so why don't you spend a little bit more time here
watching another video :)