WHO Advice in Using Masks- Update

David Carpenter | June 10, 2020 | Wellness | No Comments

On Friday June 5 the WHO changed its recommendations for masks. The document is 12 pages long with 4 sections: guidance for healthcare facilities (pages 2-5), guidance for the general public (pages 6-10), guidance for patients with COVID-19 at home (page 11), guidance for mask management (page 12).

Essentially nothing changes for Vietnam because we do not have community spread. The highlights of the changes are that:

healthcare workers should wear medical masks continuously during all routine activities (hospital or community).
cloth masks should not be worn by healthcare workers in a healthcare facility.
in an area with community transmission, masks should be worn by all people (healthy) who come closer than 1 meter from other people.
non-medical (fabric) masks should be 3 layers.

The key paragraph is this:

However, taking into account the available studies evaluating pre- and asymptomatic transmission, a growing compendium of observational evidence on the use of masks by the general public in several countries, individual values and preferences, as well as the difficulty of physical distancing in many contexts, WHO has updated its guidance to advise that to prevent COVID-19 transmission effectively in areas of community transmission, governments should encourage the general public to wear masks in specific situations and settings as part of a comprehensive approach to suppress SARS-CoV-2 transmission (Table 2)

Table 2 on page 7 gives practical examples

Here is the link to the full WHO Guideline.

Tags:health tip