CDC: Avoid masks with valves and vents

• The CDC no longer recommends face masks with valves or vents since they “allow exhaled air to be expelled out through holes in the material.”
• While these masks allow for easier breathing, it defeats the purpose of keeping respiratory droplets from reaching others.
• N95 masks with valves may protect the wearer but it reportedly does nothing to prevent potentially infectious particles from coming out.

Face masks with valves or vents are no longer recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to the agency’s updated guidelines.

Such masks are reportedly not as effective in controlling the spread of COVID-19 since they “allow exhaled air to be expelled out through holes in the material,” the new guidance stated.

“This can allow exhaled respiratory droplets to reach others and potentially spread the COVID-19 virus. Therefore, CDC does not recommend using masks if they have an exhalation valve or vent,” the agency concluded.

Dr. John Whyte, the chief medical officer of the health care website WebMD, explained in an email to Fox News that while “there is some feeling that any type of mask is better than none,” wearing a mask incorrectly or wearing an ineffective one is not helpful in preventing the spread of the disease.

Whyte pointed out that the CDC guidelines help people choose effective masks.

He acknowledged that most people want to be comfortable when wearing a mask, but protection needs “a good seal — thereby keeping as many infectious particles that we can from affecting other people.”

So while masks with valves help the wearer breathe more easily, they also allow particles to come out. This defeats the purpose of infection control, Whyte continued.

Dr. Ali Raj, executive vice chairman of the department of medicine at Mass. General Hospital, told the Boston Globe back in May, “You might as well have people not wearing masks at all if they’ve got a one-way valve because they’re just breathing everything right out into the air without any filtration.”

A local health department had issued a warning at the time for valved N95 masks.

N95s help “reduce the wearer’s exposure to airborne particles, from small particle aerosols to large droplets,” according to the CDC. N95s with valves, however, only protect the wearer but not those around them.

Source: FOX News