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Why You Should Double-Mask To Prevent COVID-19 (And How To Do It)
As more contagious coronavirus variants emerge, health experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, say it’s probably a good idea to start doubling up on your face masks.
The new variants are thought to have an easier time binding to our cells, so the more layers we have covering our noses and mouths, the less likely we’ll be exposed to viral particles that can infect our cells and make us sick. Two masks may help create a stronger shield between you and the virus (or, at the very least, they couldn’t hurt).
Here’s everything you should know about double-masking ― including how to go about it ― so you can prevent COVID-19 as best as you can:
Pick two masks that have enough layers and air filtration.
“The more layers, the more barriers you can put between yourself and the virus, the better off you’re going to be,” said Thomas Duszynski, the director of epidemiology education at Indiana University’s Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health.
N95 face masks are the gold standard in terms of protection. If you can get ahold of an N95 and double it up with a surgical mask, you’re going to have an efficient shield against viral particles.
But N95 masks continue to be in limited supply, so they’ll be difficult to score for the time being. The issue then is how to spice up your cloth or surgical face masks, said Onyema Ogbuagu, a Yale Medicine infectious disease doctor and principal investigator of Yale’s Pfizer COVID-19 trial.
The two properties of a mask you want to look for are the filtering capacity and the breathability, according to Ogbuagu. You want masks that can both filter the air we breathe in and limit how many respiratory secretions we shoot out.
KN95 masks are thought to be pretty good alternatives to N95 masks in non-clinical settings. They might not be quite as rigorous as N95s — there’s really no beating them — but KN95 masks still offer a lot of protection for you and others when sealed around your nose and mouth. (
