Day: 27 August 2020

The use of face coverings by the general public to help stop the spread of COVID-19 has become the most visible sign of the coronavirus pandemic, constantly reminding us that things are not normal. The idea behind the use of face coverings is that because a large number of COVID-19 sufferers (the majority?) have mild to no symptoms, wearing a face covering will prevent these individuals from inadvertently infecting others. Current evidence is that COVID-19 is transmitted via two main routes: respiratory droplets and surface contact. Face coverings are assumed to be effective at capturing respiratory droplets, which is the rationale for their use. But what about their impact on transmission through surface contact? The aim of face coverings is to prevent an asymptomatic individual from infecting others. For such an individual, their face covering would become saturated with respiratory droplets containing coronavirus and in fact, the more effective the face covering, the more virus it will have captured. So if an infectious individual touched their face covering, they would potentially be contaminating their fingers with coronavirus…which they could then transfer to the next thing they touched – like a door-handle, handrail or table. Although such an individual could have still contaminated their hands and the environment whilst not wearing a face covering, the fact that the face covering has ...

Getting Schoolchildren to Wear Face Masks is Impractical The Spectator has published a great piece by Calvin Robinson, the teacher who featured in a recent job advertisement put out by the Department for Education. He thinks it's completely impractical to get schoolchildren to wear face muzzles. Has anyone who is recommending the use of masks in schools ever spent any significant amount of time working with young people? It seems unlikely.Children simply will not wear their masks correctly, if at all. Girls will constantly be adjusting them; boys will be flicking them across the room and pulling each others’ elastic bands. They’ll all be pulling them down to their necks at break time, resulting in pieces of food and drink being spilt inside. That, and the fact that they’ll be wearing them around their necks, mirroring the behaviour of adults they see on public transport, further trapping bacteria. If anything, face masks will be detrimental to the health of young people.Of course, there is much to be debated about whether face masks are beneficial at all, with the deputy chief medical officer, Jenny Harries, recently announcing that they may, in fact, increase health risks. I’m not a medical expert; I’ll leave the science to the professionals. What I do know is that masks will not work in a school environment. ...