Is it risky to wear a COVID-19 protective mask for a really long time?

Source: Internet

During the COVID-19 coronavirus disease epidemic in the spring of 2020, questions arose about protective measures. Social media users shared related images, and in one case, a newspaper column claimed that frequent or prolonged use of facial masks resulted in one breathing too much of one's carbon dioxide, causing There may be health concerns.

"Dr. For example, Denis A. Castro B, wrote in the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard, prolonged use of facial masks lead to hypoxia:

As we exhale, more and more air is converted into carbon dioxide, which is why we feel dizzy.

This makes the user drunk and too much when he should move, perform displacement actions. It causes restlessness, loss of alertness, and conscious thought. This causes great fatigue. Besides, the lack of oxygen causes glucose breakdown and growth of endangered lactic acid.

The post does not specify what type of masks cause these issues (although the article's image shows the N95 respirator mask), nor does it indicate if it affects people with respiratory conditions more. It should be noted that hypoxia is a condition in which the body tissues are starved of oxygen.

Another post on Facebook argued that prolonged use of masks led to hypercapnia, a condition resulting from too much carbon dioxide in the blood.

Source: Facebook

Symptoms of hypercapnia include dizziness, drowsiness, fatigue, headache, feeling disorganized, skin flaring, and shortness of breath. Severe symptoms include consciousness, coma, hyperventilation, muscle shaking, and seizures among others. Respiratory disease such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can cause both hypercapnia and hypoxia.

But research articles and experts suggest that most people are unlikely to have such extreme symptoms. An epidemiologist and lecturer at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales Australia. Abrar Ahmed Chughtai says that the risk of hypoxia and hypercapnia is unlikely to occur with a cloth and surgical mask because they are not tight-fitting:

Some people with pre-existing respiratory diseases (such as asthma, COPD) may have difficulty breathing, with the use of some types of tightly fitted masks, called respirators. [Hypoxia is less likely] because they can stop using masks in that case. The risk is very low with a cloth and surgical mask as they are not tight around [the] face.

He also argued that in the case of prolonged use of any of these masks, "dizziness [] was less likely, but may cause fatigue."

The N95 respirator is an example of personal protective equipment (PPE) commonly worn by health workers to protect the wearer from airborne particles and face contaminating liquid. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does not recommend that the general public use these masks as health workers and other medical first responders need them more.

A team of Stanford engineers is developing an N95 face mask to combat the side effects of oxygen deficiency. In an interview, John Xu, a mechanical engineer behind the effort, said:

The N95 mask estimates that the amount of oxygen can be reduced by 5 to 20 percent. It is also important for a healthy person. It can cause dizziness and lighthouse. If you wear a mask for a long time, it can damage the lungs. For a patient with shortness of breath, it can also be fatal.

And their focus is first on giving these masks to health workers.

We are targeting this to anyone who has to wear a mask for long periods, first responders, doctors, nurses, and even patients who do not want to infect others. In the near term, we hope that these will get into health workers as soon as possible.

According to the general public Reuters, it is unlikely to wear masks for long periods except for long periods outside homes. CDC representative spoke to Reuters:

CO2 will gradually develop in the veil after some time.  However, CO2 levels are most likely in contact with people likely to build up in the mask. You might cause headaches but you most likely do not have to experience symptoms seen at high levels of CO2. The mask may be uncomfortable for a variety of reasons including sensitivity to CO2 and the person will be motivated to remove the mask. It is unlikely that wearing a COVID-19 mask will cause hypercapnia.

The CDC recommends that the general public wear clothes masks, giving N95 respirators and surgical masks to health workers. They also offer exceptions for those they should wear:

Cloth face covers ought not to beset on kids under 2 years old, any individual who experiences issues breathing, or is unconscious, incapable, or unfit to remove the mask without help.

Additional guidance comes with these recommendations that face masks should not be a substitute for social distance.

The CDC also responded to Snopes as to how the N95 respirator would have an impact on health workers:

Hypoventilation (lung deficiency ventilation) is a major cause of significant discomfort when wearing the N95 Filtering Facepiece Respirator (FFR). However, the study [indicated] that hypoventilation did not pose a significant risk to health workers during less than one hour of continuous N95 use. When health workers are working long hours without a break while wearing an N95 FFR, CO2 can accumulate in the breathing space inside the respirator and rise continuously past the 1-hour mark, which is a significant physiological effect on the wearer. Effects may occur, including headaches, altered cognitive judgment, and increased breathing frequency, among other symptoms.

To fix the problem of too much CO2 in the breath that remains inside the mouthpiece of the respirator, a worker may simply remove the respirator. Some facilities practice oxygen supplementation during these breaks with the use of respirators, but in reality there is no need as oxygen in the atmosphere is more than sufficient to relieve most of the symptoms listed above.

Vanguard piece is also dangerous to use masks in cars:

Some people drive their car with a mask, which is very dangerous because stale air can cause the driver to lose consciousness.

Chughtai said he believed such a threat was "less likely", and that wearing such a mask was also causing "respiratory problems" unless the runner had a pre-existing respiratory disease Was not.

All in all, according to Chughtai, little research has been done on the effect of masks on wearers. In some studies, participants noted the difficulty in breathing, but not hypoxia.

Finally, the effect of a mask on its wearer depends on the health of the wearer, any pre-respiratory diseases, the type of mask, and the time the person wears it. In most cases, the effects of long-term use of cloth masks are small. Like short-term measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, masks should only be worn when the wearer is near others and used for necessary measures such as social distance, and more needed. Thus, we claim the masked dangers to be "mostly inaccurate."

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