WARNING: Face masks don’t work in the rain
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A wet face mask is less effective because water restricts airflow and cuts the amount of viral filtering, scientists have warned.
The World Health Organization says dry three-layer masks – the now-common blue surgical masks are the most recognisable of these – worn over the mouth and nose can protect people from catching coronavirus.
But a former senior WHO official has urged users to change their face covering if it gets wet because ‘moisture makes masks porous’, meaning ‘all types of mask are essentially vulnerable in damp weather’.
Professor Tim Spector, who runs the Covid-19 Symptom Study app, warned the Government that the public aren’t aware of the risks involved with a wet face mask, saying it would be ‘useful if clear advice was issued to the public’.
The warning comes as the UK heads deeper into the autumn, with rain showers and storms expected. The Met Office has forecast more ‘showery spells’ and periods of ‘prolonged rainfall’.
-dailymailUK
ABOUT: Nana Kwesi Coomson
[email protected] An Entrepreneur, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Communications Executive and Philanthropist. Editor-in-Chief of www.233times.com. A Senior Journalist with Ghanaian Chronicle Newspaper. An alumnus of Adisadel College where he read General Arts. His first degree is in Bachelor of Arts - Political Science (major) and History (minor) from the University of Ghana. He holds MSc in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Energy with Public Relations (PR) from the Robert Gordon University in the United Kingdom. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow who studied at Clark Atlanta University in USA on the Business and Entrepreneurship track.
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