On the coronavirus front lines, masks win over face shields - experts
Deemed by many to offer the desperately needed protection against coronavirus, but they provide nothing more than an additional layer of protection and certainly can't replace masks.
By DANIEL NISINMANA teacher, wearing a protective face shield amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, and students use sign language along with music instead of singing a song during the music class at Takanedai Daisan elementary school, which practices various methods of social distancing in order to preve(photo credit: REUTERS/KIM KYUNG-HOON)
In the war against coronavirus, face shield can be effective, but still fall short of the protection that masks provide, US health experts affirm, according to ABC.John Brownstein, an epidemiologist quoted in the ABC report, said that "we can't view them as direct replacements of masks." In other words, masks are a must-have, and plastic face screens are nice to have.A recent incident in a hotel in Switzerland shows that face screen cannot be solely relied on in combating the spread of the virus. Staff members of the Swiss hotel who did not wear masks and only used face shields for protection were in infected, as opposed to their colleagues who wore masks and didn't get the virus.According to The American Health Care Association, face shields can be useful in simply preventing individuals from touching their face, in particularly their eyes, and thus help prevent the spread of the virus: "they can help protect individuals from touching their own face and spreading the virus in that way."As masks are being avoided by some people, especially in the US, the least they can do is to wear a face shield says Brownstein: "wearing a face shield is clearly better than no protection at all."
