Should you wear two masks? We asked a doctor

RALEIGH, NC – Health experts have said for months that wearing a mask is important to stop the spread of COVID-19. But is there an advantage to using two masks?

It’s a hot topic now, especially since that highly contagious variant of the new coronavirus first identified in the United Kingdom was found in North Carolina.

So, we asked an emergency doctor if we should use two masks.

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“This is a simple and very complex question,” said Dr. Graham Snyder of WakeMed.

Double-masking has been a technique used in hospitals since the pandemic began, Snyder said.

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“But in the healthcare environment, we are doing this for a different reason than you can imagine,” he said.

They do this to avoid the need to constantly change their expensive N95 masks whenever a patient sneezes or coughs.

In that situation, they simply need to change the cloth mask used over the N95 mask, said Snyder.

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But at President Joe Biden’s inauguration last week, many dignitaries who are not healthcare workers were seen wearing two masks.

This led many people to wonder if they should also wear a double mask.

“When trying to protect yourself from the virus, what you want is less particles and less fluid in the face,” said Snyder. “If you wanted to add more layers, obviously, two masks would block more particles than one.”

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But he noted that duplicating the masks does not double the level of protection.

“This will decrease the transmission of the virus by a small amount. It will not reach zero and it will not be a big jump, but it would help a little more,” said Snyder.

He is reluctant, however, to insist that people wear a double mask, especially if those people have trouble breathing or speaking.

“What I don’t want to do is make people say that this is very uncomfortable, I’m not going to use it at all,” he said.

Therefore, Snyder’s advice is to wear a double mask, but only if it is comfortable.

He said that what is much more important is to get vaccinated when your turn comes, because that, he said, is the only thing that can end the pandemic.