How to make your face mask better fit with COVID-19 protection

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently updated their guidelines on how to ensure that your face mask offers maximum protection against COVID-19. Although the recommendations are not very different from the previous guidelines, they are more specific.

One theme is consistent in the orientation: proper fit is crucial. The CDC specifically recommends that your mask “fits your face perfectly” to help protect you and others from exposure to respiratory droplets that can infect you with the new coronavirus, especially when new, more contagious variants of the virus circulate around the country .

The emphasis on proper mask use follows recent research, which found that knotting the ear straps and folding the sides of disposable masks and using facial fabric covers over surgical masks (also known as a double mask) offers better protection against COVID-19 than a single-layer cloth cover or an ill-fitting medical mask alone.

Remember: your mask should serve as a barrier. When it doesn’t fit well, “you are not breathing Through the the mask – you’re breathing mostly around it, ”says William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease specialist and professor at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “And if you’re not breathing through the mask, the viruses that may be in the air can infect you or others.”

How to make sure your face mask fits properly

Your face mask should have at least two layers of breathable tissue and should completely cover your nose and mouth, extend comfortably across your cheeks and fit under your chin, says the CDC. If you have to continually adjust your mask, it is not a good fit.

Unfortunately, there is no mask that fits everyone. “Each person has a different facial profile,” says Juan Hinestroza, Ph.D., associate professor of fiber science at Cornell University. “There is no mask that fits everyone.”

But experts say there are some things you can do to test the fit of the mask and adjust it accordingly. Just a warning, by Hinestroza: The popular “candle test” (where you put your mask on to see if you can blow out a candle) is not one of them. Although this helps you to see if the mask tissue blocks the air coming out of the mouth – it does not detect the air that is leaking out (or through) the sides of the mask due to an incorrect fit.

It is also important to be aware of the feeling of the mask on your face. “Don’t be in a hurry to put it on – this is the critical moment,” says Dr. Schaffner, since you shouldn’t touch the mask after you put it on your face. Try these tests at home to make sure your fit is up to par:

This can be a problem for people who have smaller facial profiles. “Feel around your mask to see if it fits perfectly,” says Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety. Again, the mask should be placed firmly on the bridge of the nose, on the sides. cheeks and under the chin. If you can put a finger on the sides of the mask, it is not tight enough.

✔️ Adjustment check: To eliminate gaps, start with freshly washed hands. Then fold the mask in half, knot each ear loop as close as possible to the corner of the mask and secure the sides inside it. The TikTok below, by Olivia Cuid, MD, a dentist based in Montreal, offers excellent step-by-step instructions on how to do just that.

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The air inside the mask must be warm in contact with the skin, says Dr. Schaffner. If you are feeling colder drafts, there are gaps in your mask or you don’t have enough layers to provide adequate filtration.

✔️ Adjustment check: If you have already taken care of the gaps on the sides of your mask (or had none to begin with), consider the double mask, especially if you are inside a high-risk area, such as on a busy public bus or in a crowded supermarket. The CDC specifically recommends using a cloth facial mask over a disposable surgical mask, allowing the lower mask to act as a kind of filter. It is important to remember that you should always be able to see and breathe freely when using two face masks.

This is a common test done with N95 respirators to verify that they fit correctly. Users are asked if they smell anything when wearing the mask. A tissue facial mask is unlikely to completely block your ability to smell things when you are wearing it, but “you will have a muffled sense of smell when wearing the mask,” says Dr. Schaffner.

✔️ Adjustment check: You can experiment by smelling a strong smell, like lemon or orange, with your arm extended before putting on the mask. Then, smell again when wearing your mask. The perfume should be at least less potent if the mask has sufficient layers and an appropriate fit over the nose and mouth.

If you wear glasses, the blurred lenses are an indicator that you don’t have a good fit around your nose, says Hinestroza. If you don’t have prescription glasses at home, sunglasses may also work for this test. Just put on your mask, breathe and check if your glasses fog up.

✔️ Adjustment check: If you have fogged glasses, adjust the nasal thread firmly on the bridge of the nose and tighten the straps to ensure that there are no gaps in the mask between the cheeks and the eyes. Are you still fighting? The CDC says you can also try using a mask adjuster, a solid or silicone device worn over your mask (like this one) to help prevent air from leaking around the edges. These should involve the outside of your mask, do not fit inside like mask brackets, which experts do not currently recommend.

This article is correct at the time of publication. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic evolves rapidly and the scientific community’s understanding of the new coronavirus develops, some of the information may have changed since the last update. While our goal is to keep all of our stories up to date, visit the online resources provided by CDC, WHOit’s yours local department of public health to stay informed about the latest news. Always speak to your doctor for professional medical advice.

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