For several weeks, experts (Jean-Luc Gala, Marc Wathelet, Jacques Brotchi …) have insisted on the importance of the dispersion of the virus by airways from an infected individual.
They sometimes even strongly doubt the officially recommended distance of 1.50m. To cope with or circumvent this risk, wearing a cloth mask is highly recommended in public places. It is already compulsory in public transport where this spatial distance is not possible.
For the Dr Jean-Luc Gala (specialist in infectious diseases – UCLouvain): “The mask is intended for any healthy (or asymptomatic) person and it aims to reduce the transmission of the virus by asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic carriers. The mask worn by two people who meet unexpectedly in the street or in a large area, “largely neutralizes” the risk of viral transmission by an “infected person” for the benefit of all of society! So it’s a two-way mutual protection. Imagine two people unexpectedly crossing paths in a large area, one of them being unknowingly contaminated and the other not. Wearing the mask prevents the infected person from spreading the virus. The wearing of the mask by the uncontaminated person protects him from external contamination by the virus. “
As this infographic demonstrates, proposed by Dr Jean-Luc Gala and André Delvaux (prevention advisor and biotech engineer) in a open source document, wearing a mask drastically reduces the risk of contamination linked to accidental contact between an “infected individual (source patient – asymptomatic carrier)” and their vis-à-vis non-infected.
Here is the relationship between the prevalence of wearing an individual mask and the decrease in viral transmission. As clearly indicated in the two graphs below, the wearing of the individual mask in Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea) and in our Luxembourg neighbor, has made it possible to reduce the number of infected cases, and therefore death. Graphic source: http://phico.io/coronavirus, data from 04/26/2020.
Therefore, although the elderly are more at risk than young people, the mask should be worn by both young people and adults, as they can logically be a vector of disease transmission, even if they have no symptoms . For the smallest children, on the other hand, its use is strongly discouraged because of the risks of improper or dangerous use.
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