In December, as COVID-19 cases spiked in Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont launched an initiative to provide masks for all Connecticut residents. While the program itself is newsworthy, Lamont’s focus on not just the quantity but also the quality of masks being distributed is especially worth noting.
Connecticut will be distributing N95 masks, among the most protective masks manufactured for the prevention of communicable diseases. As Lamont pointed out in an interview that accompanied the program’s announcement, N95 masks are far safer than their cloth counterparts. “Let’s face it,” he urged the residents of his state, “Given the amount of community spread right now, nothing is more important than wearing that mask. If you’re used to wearing a cloth mask, step it up, get the N95 mask.”
It doesn’t take any special expertise to understand what most of us already know — not all masks are created equal. Cloth masks are simply less effective when it comes to filtering out virus particles.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker should follow Lamont’s lead for Illinois.
With the federal resources provided to the state of Illinois for pandemic assistance, the governor should provide free masks to all residents. But if the goal is to truly prevent community spread, thereby keeping open our schools, businesses and places of worship, then those masks must be high quality.
Science shows that the right face mask can provide up to 98% protection from the virus that causes COVID-19. A 2021 study, “The impact of community masking on COVID-19: A cluster randomized trial in Bangladesh,” found that surgical masks and higher-caliber disposable masks are 95% effective at filtering out virus particles — compared with just 37% for cloth masks.
There needs to be an explicit acknowledgment by our leaders at the highest levels of government that cloth face coverings are insufficient to stop the spread of the coronavirus and the variants. A single-layer cloth mask is more porous than the N95 or KN95 mask. And not only will the N95 and the KN95 filter up to 95% of particles in the air, but they also are relatively inexpensive and widely available. Linsey Marr, a Virginia Tech researcher who studies the transmissibility of airborne viruses, put it succinctly: “Cloth masks are not going to cut it with omicron.”
The N95 and some KN95 masks are manufactured with five layers of protection. A standard medical mask has three layers of protection. Compare this with the one layer of protection provided by a cloth mask. It’s true that cloth masks often are preferred for comfort and style. But infectious disease specialists agree that they are nowhere near as effective at blocking smaller aerosols or particles of the sort that carry the COVID-19 virus.
Leaders in a variety of sectors have realized that cloth masks are inadequate and have taken action to reduce their use in venues where there is a high level of constant exposure. For example, the Mayo Clinic has begun requiring all patients and visitors to wear surgical masks or N95 or KN95 masks. Any visitor wearing a single-layer cloth mask or other face covering with a high level of porousness or with ventilation will be provided a medical-grade mask to place over the mask the visitor is already wearing.
This raises the question — why has Pritzker not followed the science and moved to provide Illinois residents with the highest level of protection? In the preamble of his executive order regarding masking, face coverings are defined as “as mask or cloth face covering.” And “face coverings” are all that is required in the text of that order, with no distinctions being made between the masks that provide almost complete protection and the cloth coverings that don’t effectively protect the wearer under current conditions.
With a seven-day average of 23,000-plus new COVID-19 cases a day in Illinois and many regions headed toward 20% positivity rates, Pritzker can no longer afford to overlook this distinction. I urge Pritzker and local leaders to use the federal money received from the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan to buy and distribute high-quality protective face masks.
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By making this simple change, our leaders could ensure that the $7.5 billion in federal money received by our state and the $5.5 billion received by our counties and local governments would be put to use in a way that is most likely to save lives.
Richard Boykin is a former Cook County commissioner.
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