golfdave
Autocross Champion
totally agree, except that FFP3 are able to filter liquid aerosols, WHO confirmed yesterday during their daily live press Q&A that COVID-19 is not an airborne (aerosol) disease, the reason these medical personal are getting sick is that they have the wrong masks (surgical or FFP2 etc) while carrying out invasive respirator work, doing this creates high volumes of aerosol and without the correct masks (FFP3 or better) they are becoming infected, ALL of the masks delivered by the UK MOD to NHS hospitals over the past few days are FFP3, WHO, Public health England etc etc all recommend FFP3 , if not carrying out procedures that create aerosol (getting groceries) then surgical or FFP2 are adequate, but even then if nobody coughs or sneezes anywhere near you and you don’t touch your face before thoroughly cleaning your hands etc you should in theory be ok, as you say, it’s best to take the greatest precautions however and avoid people as much as possible and think along the lines that everything is infected and clean everywhere as much as possible.
Plain surgical masks only prevent you or an infected person breathing, coughing, sneezing out water droplets......if that
FFP3 are the best cheap masks & are a minimum of what everybody should be wearing in close spaces, any front line staff etc,
BUT in heavily contaminated areas..A2 as way tighter fit to face than FFP3....
& yesterday the PHE advice is described by the NHS as "inadequate"...….if you cough/sneeze the virus is in the drops you exhale...….the farther it travels before hitting a surface the more it increases the drying effect, which reduces the size of the water droplet which still carries the virus....as I stated before it becomes such that all you have left is a virus …..which is airborne for a short period...….if the air is moist then it will remain airborne for longer..
As for the WHO...I wouldn't trust them..thay have been "bought" by China..just look up the "dispute" between the WHO, Taiwan & China...over accurate info on this outbreak...
PS here is a report done by HSE (Health & Safety Executive)...way back in 2008 on the "effectiveness" of surgical masks & various others including FFP3...(note nothing higher was tested)...which were available to NHS....
https://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr619.pdf
The info was there..many NHS staff are getting Covid-19 due to bad PPE......all about £££...cheapest all the time..also why we only have on average 2.1, ICU beds per 1,000 of population....whereas many Asian countries have circa 7, ICU beds for 1,000 population..they increased theirs etc after SARS & MERS….