Many people dispute the effectiveness of wearing a mask for protection. If one can criticize the past confusion around the measure, it is solidly defended.
On social networks there are many texts denouncing the wearing of a mask as useless, or even dangerous. This protective device would be a symbol of submission, the people wearing it would be sheep, not to mention the cost it represents … These opponents of the mask nevertheless point the finger at the lack of education around the imposition of the mask in their protest. public places.
Here is a quick review of the arguments explaining how wearing a mask helps curb the epidemic.
Purely medical reasons
First of all, anti-masks are right on one point: the mask does not protect the wearer, but the people around it. They prevent contamination of the environment by slowing down droplets and spray.
They must therefore be worn by the greatest number, in addition to barrier gestures, in the event of gatherings or in closed places.
Interviewed in 20 Minutes, Dr. Jonathan Favre explains that wearing a mask is all the more important since “many people are asymptomatic and therefore do not know they are carriers of the virus. "
A group of doctors published a column in the Point to defend the wearing of a mask, recalling that “even without confinement, wearing a mask at 80% or more lowers the R0 below 1, a necessary condition for roll back the epidemic. ” (the R0 being the reproduction rate of the epidemic, that is to say the expected number of cases directly generated by a case).
These protective devices can be made easily and inexpensively at home.
Wearing the mask as a solidarity citizen act
For his part, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the WHO, addressed the anti-masks who believe that it is less serious that the virus kills the elderly: "Every life, whether it is a young or old, is precious. And we must do everything to save it ”. "To accept that someone dies because of their age is moral bankruptcy."
Wearing a mask makes it possible to avoid re-containment, which is even more liberating than the imposed mask.
Against the conspirators, the scientist Aurélien Barrau opposes on his Facebook page an exercise of logic:
“Many people denounce the power and money issues of pharmaceutical companies. All the more reason to contain the epidemic at a lower cost and without medication! Even the most "conspiratorial" cannot deny that wearing a mask will not enrich any occult power … (…)
We demanded – and rightly so – these masks when they were missing. Refusing to use them in a confined space when they are available is totally inconsistent.
(…)
That the virus is smaller than the mesh of the mask obviously does not mean that the latter are useless: the droplets which carry a good part of the pathogens are stopped. (…)
I have often read in recent days that "breathing well is essential for health". Certainly. Drink well too. However, when the water in the pond is poisoned, it is better to hold back a few minutes and go to a pure spring, right? (…)
And even if, improbably, the mask turned out to be essentially useless, wasn't the smallest effort worth trying? To put this ridiculous discomfort (the West so often forgets the real evils of this time) in the face of the possibility of a life saved, doesn't it immediately close the dilemma? (…)
Frankly, faced with the suffering of intubated patients, faced with the 600,000 deaths – here and elsewhere -, isn't there something indecent about the refusal of the tiny effort in question here? As a symptom of the definitive forgetting of all concerns for the common good. "
Ultimately, the mask serves to protect others who also protect us, and is an essential barrier gesture in the fight against disease. For practical advice on the mask, including how to successfully wash it without using machines every day, the Twitter account of the Stop Postillons collective is a good source of information: