More and more cities are making it compulsory to wear a mask in all or part of their streets. Municipalities of Mayenne, Nice, Lille, popular seaside resorts, and from this Wednesday 5 August, Toulouse: it is now a large part of urban France that must wear the mask when going out.
July 29, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran “recommended” the wearing of the mask outdoors everywhere : “l‘World Health Organization (WHO) now recognizes a serious risk of aerosol transmission of the virus, especially when there is a concentration of people“, he explained, especially if physical distancing cannot be maintained. Olivier Véran authorized the prefects to impose the wearing of masks on July 31.
Yet in the open air the epidemiologist Martin Blachier estimated on RTL that “the mask outdoors will have little impact.” He explained that “the contamination occurs when the viral load in the air is too high, therefore when the air is not renewed. If you are in the garden, the risk is twenty times lower.”
However, wearing a mask is a useful tool when physical distancing cannot be maintained, in crowded narrow streets or large gatherings. On RTL, the epidemiologist Catherine Hill recalled that it “is not the best way to fight against the epidemic, but we only have this one“She argues that even if the risk is lower, it exists and must therefore be limited as much as possible.
