scholarly journals Adolescents’ face mask usage and contact transmission in novel Coronavirus

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fang-Lin Chao

The global outbreak of coronavirus has become an international public health threat. Prevention is of paramount importance to contain its spread. This study observes face mask wearing behavior and contact transmission problems in Taiwan. Teachers track student status in class. In addition to measuring body temperature and regular disinfection, classrooms require ventilation wear mask, provide alcohol spray and avoid sharing the microphone. Both questionnaire surveys and experimental were utilized. A total of 160 adults residing in Taiwan participated in the survey. The dye simulated the possible virus area on the mask surface during usage. Subjects were required to complete a questionnaire and simulate the spread of contact transmission when using a computer. Eighty-one % of respondents reported consistent use of surgical masks several times a day. They reported taking their masks off in relatively safe areas. Most people reported using one mask per day and storing the masks in their pockets. As a result, masks surface become a contamination source. In the contact experiment, ten adults were requested to don and doff a surgical mask while doing a word processing task. The extended contamination areas were recorded and identified by image analysis. The results show an average contamination area of the workspace is significant 530 cm2. When the hand touches the surface of the mask, it may spread the virus to the subsequent contact area.

2021 ◽  
pp. 0272989X2110030
Author(s):  
Serin Lee ◽  
Zelda B. Zabinsky ◽  
Judith N. Wasserheit ◽  
Stephen M. Kofsky ◽  
Shan Liu

As the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues to expand, policymakers are striving to balance the combinations of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to keep people safe and minimize social disruptions. We developed and calibrated an agent-based simulation to model COVID-19 outbreaks in the greater Seattle area. The model simulated NPIs, including social distancing, face mask use, school closure, testing, and contact tracing with variable compliance and effectiveness to identify optimal NPI combinations that can control the spread of the virus in a large urban area. Results highlight the importance of at least 75% face mask use to relax social distancing and school closure measures while keeping infections low. It is important to relax NPIs cautiously during vaccine rollout in 2021.


Author(s):  
Mohd Nor Faiz Norrrahim ◽  
Noor Azilah Mohd Kasim ◽  
Victor Feizal Knight ◽  
Keat Khim Ong ◽  
Siti Aminah Mohd Noor ◽  
...  

The threat of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is worrying as millions of people suffered from this outbreak. The COVID-19 can be airborne by attaching to human nasal or saliva secretion of an infected person or suspended fine particulates in the air. Therefore, in order to minimize the risks associated with this pandemic, an efficient, robust and affordable air‐borne virus removal filters are highly demanded for prevention of spreading viruses in hospitals, transportation hubs, schools, and/or other venues with high human turn‐over. Respirators such as N95, N99 and N100 as well as surgical masks have been widely used. To date, there is no filter standards or special filter technologies tailored for effectively adsorbing the airborne viruses. Studies had shown the electrostatic fibers were capable to entrap the negatively charged viruses including COVID-19. Researchers believed that the positive surface charge of filtration material is an important key to efficiently adsorb the negatively charged viruses. Nanocellulose has emerged as a new class of biobased material with promising potential application in the filtration of viruses. Nanocellulose which is uniform in diameter and has excellent nanofibrillar morphology. To the best of our knowledge, lack of study is done to determine the efficiency of cationic nanocellulose as filtration material of COVID-19.


Author(s):  
Dr. Nizamuddin Ahmed ◽  
Biswajit Goswami ◽  
Swami Tattwasarananda

Since midnight of March 25, 2020, India's 1.3 billion people had gone under total lockdown to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and this prolonged countrywide lockdown has a serious impact on the life of the Indian tribes like their income, occupation, social life, personal life etc., as they are the most vulnerable and poor marginalized people of India, having neglected through the ages in every aspect of their life and livelihood. Bhumij tribe is one of them. They mainly reside in the Indian state of Odisha, Jharkhand, and West Bengal. Lutia is a typical Bhumij concentrated village in the area of Simlabandh under Hirbandh community development block of Khatra sub-division in the district of Bankura of the Indian state of West Bengal. By maintaining proper social distance and wearing face mask we have taken in-depth interview of 25 villagers of different age group and gender belong to Bhumij tribal community in this village on the various aspects of their day to day life, their education, their health awareness especially about the awareness regarding COVID-19, their culture, religious and supernatural beliefs, etc. by adopting purposive sampling technique method along with tried to know their opinion and views regarding the impact of countrywide lockdown to their daily life. Therefore, in this paper, an attempt has been made to explore their life during the lockdown. KEY WORDS: Bhumij tribe, Life of Bhumij, Lockdown, Covid-19, Lutia Village of Bankura district.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J Zorko ◽  
Shira Gertsman ◽  
Katie O'Hearn ◽  
Nicholas Timmerman ◽  
Nasser Ambu-Ali ◽  
...  

Background: The high demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) during the novel coronavirus outbreak has created global shortages and prompted the need to develop strategies to conserve supply. Surgical mask PPE have a broad application of use in a pandemic setting, but little is known regarding decontamination interventions to allow for their reuse. Objective: Identify and synthesize data from original published studies evaluating interventions to decontaminate surgical masks for the purpose of reuse. Methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, CENTRAL, Global Health, the WHO COVID-19 database, Google Scholar, DisasterLit, preprint servers, and prominent journals from inception to April 8, 2020 for prospective original research on decontamination interventions for surgical mask PPE. Citation screening was conducted independently in duplicate. Study characteristics, interventions, and outcomes were extracted from included studies by two independent reviewers. Outcomes of interest included impact of decontamination interventions on surgical mask performance and germicidal effects. Results: Seven studies met eligibility criteria: one evaluated the effects of heat and chemical decontamination interventions applied after mask use on mask performance, and six evaluated interventions applied prior to mask use to enhance antimicrobial properties and/or mask performance. Mask performance and germicidal effects were both evaluated in heterogenous test conditions across a variety of mask samples (whole masks and pieces or individual mask layers). Safety outcomes were infrequently evaluated. Mask performance was best preserved with dry heat decontamination. Germicidal effects were best in salt-, N-halamine- and nanoparticle-coated masks. Conclusion: There is limited evidence on the safety or efficacy of surgical mask decontamination. Given the heterogenous methods used in the studies to date, we are unable to draw conclusions on the most appropriate, safest intervention(s) for decontaminating surgical masks for the purpose of reuse.


2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 8731-8738
Author(s):  
Zhang Xi

The transmission routes of novel coronavirus pneumonia include direct transmission, aerosol transmission and contact transmission. Therefore, the novel coronavirus pneumonia has been spread very quickly. This has a certain impact on the development of graphic design. Graphic design plays an important role in product design. However, the traditional aided design method is too complex, and it is difficult for designers to design works that meet their own needs. In the design of 3D virtual vision graphics, the distance calculation of time series is not accurate. This kind of error will bring some errors to the design of complex curved surface products. In order to measure the similarity of time series effectively, the calculation principle of Euclidean distance and dynamic bending distance is analyzed. Combined with the advantages of these two methods, a new distance calculation method based on morphological fitting is proposed. In this paper, through the research of ordered point sequence, the 3D virtual design method is used to improve the design effect, which has reference value for the design of works that meet the requirements of designers during the popularity of COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1474-1484
Author(s):  
Giulio Gabrieli ◽  
Gianluca Esposito

To curb the diffusion of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), governments worldwide have introduced different policies, including lockdowns, social distancing, and mandatory mask wearing. Face mask wearing, especially, has an impact on the formation of first impressions, given that when meeting someone for the first time, individuals rely on the only available piece of information, the newly met person’s aesthetic appearance, in order to make initial estimations of other traits, such as competence, intelligence, or trustworthiness. However, face mask wearing affects the aesthetic appearance of an individual, creating uncertainty which, in turn, has been reported to reduce others’ perceived trustworthiness. In this paper, the influence of face mask wearing on strangers’ perceived trustworthiness and aesthetic appearance is assessed to verify the impact of this policy on impression formation. Participants (N = 71) have been instructed to assess the trustworthiness and the aesthetic appearance of a selection of 96 images depicting individuals of different ages (children, adults, and older adults), gender (men and women), and ethnicity (Asians or Caucasians). Participants were randomly divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control group. Participants in the experimental group (N = 38) rated faces of individuals wearing a face mask, while participants in the control group rated the same faces but in the absence of a face mask. Images were presented in random order. For each face, participants were asked to rate the aesthetic appearance and perceived trustworthiness of the stranger on two different 100-point Likert scales. Results demonstrate that (i) the correlation between perceived trustworthiness and aesthetic appearance is not affected by the presence of a face mask, and (ii) age, but not ethnicity and gender, influences the magnitude of differences in perceived trustworthiness levels during mask wearing.


Author(s):  
Santosh Kumar Swain ◽  
Pragnya Paramita Jena

The current novel corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a highly infectious disease of the respiratory tract and rapidly spreading all over the world in short span of time. In current COVID-19 pandemic, use of the face mask is becoming usual and ubiquitous for both health care workers and public individuals. Wearing face mask is one of the non-pharmaceutical interventions which need minimum cost and provide dramatic response for preventing the COVID-19 infection. Limited availability of the vaccine and inadequate supply of therapeutic options, face mask use is an important part for public health measures for restricting the COVID-19 spread. Regardless of the debate among medical community regarding global face mask production shortage, a greater number of countries in the world are moving ahead with recommendations or mandates for using face mask in public. As currently global shortage of N95/FFP2 respirators and surgical masks for use by health care workers in the hospitals, simple cloth masks will act as a pragmatic solution for the use of the public. General public often use the surgical mask or even filtering facepiece (FFP) masks irrespective of their need, resulting unnecessary shortage for needy individuals those are exposed to the patients or those are health care workers. So, this review article will clarify the indication of the different types of masks and their rational use in the current COVID-19 pandemic.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priyanka L Shahane-Kapse ◽  
Moreshwar R Shende ◽  
Sumit Kar ◽  
Pradeep Deshmukh ◽  
Dhiraj Bhandari ◽  
...  

Introduction: One of the important measures to prevent spread of COVID-19 in community is use of face mask. Though the debate is going on regarding the airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 it makes reasonable point for universal use of face masks. A large variety of face masks are available in the market or people can make their own using household items. The efficacy of masks depends upon the type of cloth and number of layers of the cloth. Material and methods: We have created an innovative mask with two layers of cotton and an impervious layer. The impervious layer made from polypropylene coated with polyurethane was applied on the outer side in the middle half of the mask in front of mouth and nose. The efficacy of this test mask was measured against N95FFR (reference standard), triple layer surgical masks and single layer cotton mask. A manikin was used wearing these masks/respirator and aerosols/droplets of diluted red colored carbol fuchsin and fluorescent Auramine O were sprayed from distance of 1m and 2m. We also tested use of face shield. Both macroscopic and microscopic examination of the dissected masks and respirator was performed. Results: The N95FFR was able to block the aerosols/droplets by its front layer. One triple layer surgical mask showed microscopic presence of stain in its innermost layer while the other blocked it with middle layer. The single layer cotton mask was not able to protect as we observed stain on the face itself. The test mask blocked most of the stain on impervious layer and also on the front cotton layer on lateral sides, where impervious layer was absent. When fluorescent stain was used, ultraviolet examination demonstrated that the whole area covered by test mask was clean while the other non covered area was fluorescent. Conclusion: We believe that our innovation can be used in the community as well as in general areas of the hospital like, offices, labs, etc. and can be a better alternative to single use triple layer surgical masks. Further testing may be done by other organizations to rule out bias in our study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (6) ◽  
pp. 1875-1885
Author(s):  
Ruchi Jayaswal ◽  
Manish Dixit

A novel coronavirus has spread over the world and has become an outbreak. This, according to a WHO report, is an infectious disease that aims to spread. As a consequence, taking precautions is the only method to avoid catching this virus. The most important preventive measure against COVID-19 is to wear a mask. In this paper, a framework is designed for face mask detection using a deep learning approach. This paper aims to predict a person having a mask or unmask and also presents a proposed dataset named RTFMD (Real-Time Face Mask Dataset) to accomplish this objective. We have also taken the RFMD dataset from the internet to analyze the performance of system. Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE) technique is applied at the time of pre-processing to enhance the visual quality of images. Subsequently, Inceptionv3 model used to train the face mask images and SSD face detector model has been used for face detection. Therefore, this paper proposed a model CLAHE-SSD_IV3 to classify the mask or without mask images. The system is also tested at VGG16, VGG19, Xception, MobilenetV2 models at different hyperparameters values and analyze them. Furthermore, compared the result of the proposed dataset RTFMD with the RFMD dataset. Additionally, proposed approach is compared with the existing approach on Face Mask dataset and RTFMD dataset. The outcomes have obtained 98% test accuracy on this proposed dataset RTFMD while 97% accuracy on the RFMD dataset in real-time.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayara Jeronymo Uébe Mansur ◽  
Bárbara Vieira Bolckau Miranda ◽  
Paloma Priscila Porreca ◽  
Victor Paes Dias Gonçalves ◽  
Anderson Pontes Morales ◽  
...  

The main way to combat and prevent the spread of COVID-19 is through the use of face masksin all situations, whether in public places or workspaces and also during physical activity or exercise. However, recommendations for the use of face masks during exercise vary globally and the physiological impact of using tissue or surgical masks duringthis activity is not well understood. Thus, the objective of this work is to carry out a systematic review to investigate the impact of using a mask during physical activity or exercise in the parameters: ventilatory, physiological, and performance. A structured search was performed following the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review (PRISMA) in the Medline / PubMed and Web of Science, Scopus and Bireme / Lilacs / BVS databases until May 2021. Seven published studies were included in the systematic review. All studies were randomized controlled and crossover clinical trials, seven studies used a surgical mask in their analysis, three studies used a P95 mask, and two studies used a cloth mask. When analyzing the results, four studies showed no significant difference in the use of surgical masks in relation to performance, ventilatory and hemodynamic function parameters; three studies showed a significant worsening with the condition of using a mask in ventilatory, cardiorespiratoryand performance parameters. It was concluded that the findings of the evaluated studies showed divergences in ventilatory, physiological and performance parameters. It is believed that it may be related to the types of exercise protocols used in the assessment. In addition, the study methods had a low risk of bia


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