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Dr K Aggarwal, President CMAAO with input from Dr Monica Vasudev
IMA-CMAAO Webinar
India
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New Delhi, December 06, 2020:
WHO On COVID Masks for Public
- WHO tightened guidelines on wearing face masks
- Recommending that, where COVID-19 is spreading, they be worn by everyone in health care facilities and for all interactions in poorly-ventilated indoor spaces.
- In June, the WHO urged governments to ask everyone to wear fabric masks in indoor and outdoor public areas where there was a risk of transmission of the virus.
- WHO said that, where the epidemic was spreading, people – including children and students aged 12 or over – should always wear masks in shops, workplaces and schools that lack adequate ventilation, and when receiving visitors at home in poorly ventilated rooms.
- Masks should also be worn outdoors and in well ventilated indoor spaces where physical distancing of at least one meter (3 ft) could not be maintained.
- Masks – which protect against transmission of the virus rather than infection – needed to be accompanied by other precautions such as hand-washing.
- In areas of COVID-19 spread, it also advised “universal” wearing of medical masks in health care facilities, including when caring for other patients.
- The advice applied to visitors, outpatients and to common areas such as cafeterias and staff rooms.
- Health care workers could wear N95 respirator masks if available when caring for COVID-19 patients, but their only proven protection is when they are doing aerosol-generating procedures which carry higher risks
- People doing vigorous physical activity not wear masks, particularly asthamatics
- Adequate ventilation, physical distancing and disinfection of “high-touch surfaces” in the gym must be maintained, or their temporarily closure should be considered.
Excerpts from Reuters
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