The Shocking Truth About N95 Respirators VS Surgical Masks
there’s definitely a lot of opinions out there about N95 respirators vs surgical masks. How effective they are at preventing the wearer from getting an infection with a contagious virus.
A Study on 2862 Medical Workers
So today we’re going to take a look at a four-year-long study in the fall. 2862 medical workers working at 137 different medical centers during peak flu season. This study is published in July of 2019. And it’s titled “N95 respirators versus medical masks for preventing influenza among healthcare personnel a randomized clinical trial“.
And they give half the staff N95 respirators and the other half surgical masks. Then they wear at work to determine if either of them was even effective at preventing from flu. And if so, which one was most effective. And I think you’re going to be just as surprised by the results as I was.
But first, What the differences are between an N95 respirator and a surgical mask.
What is a Respirator
So according to the CDC, a respirator is a personal protective device. We wear it on the face or head. And it covers at least the nose and mouth. we use a respirator to reduce the risk of inhaling hazardous airborne particles. N95 FFR is a type of respirator. It removes particles from the air that breathe through it. These respirators filter out at least 95% of very small 0.3 micron particles.
And on the same page, they say surgical masks or loose-fitting provide only barrier protection against droplets, including large respiratory particles. Most face masks do not effectively filter small particles from the air and do not prevent leakage around the edge of the mask when the user inhales.
So N95 respirators designed to create a tight seal for the user. Since the respirator filtered most of the air, and it can filter out up to 2.3 microns. So It is small enough to capture most viruses.
Surgical masks were actually designed to prevent the wearer from contaminating the surrounding area
when they cough, sneeze, breathe or even talk, they do not filter out small particles as the N95 respirator does. A
Moreover, They do not create an airtight seal. This is leakage where air can come in from the top and around the sides of the mask and just bypass the mask altogether.
The Results of that Four-Year-Long Study: There is only a difference of 1% between N95 Respirators VS Surgical Masks.
So if we go back to that four-year-long study. And they found that out of the 2862 participants, 207 medical workers who wear the N95 respirators to work and 193 medical workers who instead wear the medical masks did contract influenza. So that’s 8.2% in the N95 group contracted it and 7.2% in the medical mask group contracted it. In other words, that is only a difference of 1% between the two masks. And this led the authors of the paper to conclude: no significant difference between the effectiveness of N 95 respirators and medical masks. They both prevent laboratory-confirmed influenza amongst participants routinely exposed to respiratory illness in the workplace.
So pretty surprising results. And personally, two big things stood out to me when reading through this study.
So first, how high those numbers are!!! People actually got infected with the flu is 8.2% and 7.2%.
They are trained and medical professionals. But high numbers are probably a result of just them being exposed to this virus on almost a daily basis. And probably more of them didn’t follow other best practices during their shifts. Such as washing their hands for 20 seconds, removing their mask properly, and not touching their face.
And probably fewer of them actually inhaling the virus and getting affected that way. Many viruses can actually live on the surface of different materials anywhere from a few hours up to several days. That depends on the virus and the surface material.
So according to one study that I found both influenza A and influenza B viruses survive 24 to 48 hours on hard non-porous surfaces (such as stainless steel and plastic). Or they survive for less than eight to 12 hours on cloth, paper, and tissues. viruses survived the hands for 24 hours after transfer from stainless steel. And they survived the hands for up to 15 minutes from tissues, survived on hands for up to five minutes after transfer from environmental surfaces.
