Opinion
SUPERVISED AND ENFORCED UNIVERSAL N95 MASKING AS THE SOLUTION TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Back on 5 February 2020, (https://touch.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2662707927099382&id=100000806023869) I was one of the first people to recognise that Covid-19 can be transmitted asymptomatically and advocated universal masking as a measure to prevent such transmission. After some initial illogical objection from many quarters, universal masking is now widely practised and has become mandatory in many countries.
Fast forward 15 months, it is a sad failure of public policy that this pandemic is still rolling on with a vengeance. Up till today, there are now 158 million cases and 3.3 million deaths despite 310 million people already vaccinated.
There are 4 reasons why many countries are experiencing large spikes in infections in their 3rd or 4th waves:
(1) Vaccinations are not proceeding fast enough.
(2) Consequently, the virus has been allowed time to mutate into dangerous variants that spread faster and become more deadly.
(3) There is a failure to institute adequate masking and social distancing measures as people still congregate for social, religious and political activities.
(4) Masks when worn do not prevent transmission because the masks are poor quality cloth masks or they are not worn properly.
To me, the solution to this pandemic is to mandate the compulsory wearing of N95 masks universally. If worn properly, such a practice will reduce everyone’s exposure to the virus by 99%! This will surely spell the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Last year’s objection based on the excuse of having insufficient supply of N95 masks no longer holds water. The world had 15 months to activate a wartime effort to mass-produce N95 masks for the whole world. If there was enough time, effort and money to introduce the vaccine, why wasn’t there enough time, effort and money for the manufacture of something far simpler and cheaper - the N95 mask?
(NB: I’m not alone in this opinion. Please see https://www.google.com.sg/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/26/n95-masks-safest-next-best-options/%3foutputType=amp)
