By Chris Otaigbe
In your bid to avoid contracting the coronavirus and in obedience to directives to keep away from sources that may bring the dreaded pandemic your way, you wear a facemask. Not a bad idea.
What is a bad idea, however, is wearing it while you are engaged in energy-sapping activities such as walking, jogging and general exercise among others.
In China, two boys dropped dead wearing masks during gym class, a man wearing an N95 mask passed out while driving a car, crashing into a pole.
A Runner’s lung collapsed, jogging with her facemask on and another ran a couple of miles and ended up with burst lungs.
Although, Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York State, in the US, affirmed that facemask has proved effective as a major anti-Covid-19 measure, but Doctors warn that you must not wear a mask during exercise.
But wearing of facemasks did not come on us suddenly as a general global fashion, it was an idea that became expedient in the face of the ravaging pandemic.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advised people to wear cloth face coverings in public settings where it is difficult to socially distance, like pharmacies and grocery stores.
It is not just to stop you from getting the virus; it is also to prevent people who might not have symptoms from unknowingly spreading it to others.
Initially, the CDC had asked people to avoid it if they weren’t health care workers, only to issue an advisory, compelling citizens to use them all the time outside.
Senior vice president and regional medical director of Medical Emergency Logistics Service International SOS, Dr. Robert Quigley, said the myths about the use of facemasks evolved over time.
According to him, there has been a ton of misinformation on ways to protect yourself and loved ones from the virus, including but not limited to the use of facemasks.
There are two facemasks currently in circulation, they are the N95 mask and the surgical mask. The N95 mask is recognizable from pictures of healthcare workers, while the surgical or medical mask is the disposable paper kind, used by doctors.
Even if you can access an N95 or surgical mask, they should be reserved for people who really need them on the front lines.
Quigley said the N95s are most appropriate for healthcare providers and first responders as they’re impervious to the virus. This mask, he explained, is in short supply and should be only acquired by those at risk, ditto surgical masks.
An emergency physician, Dr. Larry Burchett, M.D., said this is the reason why the CDC initially told people who were not working in hospitals that they had no need to wear masks and that where there is a shortage of masks, advocated that healthcare workers should get them first.
Burchett advised people to make their own facemasks out of fabric they already have at home.
The use of facemasks has been made so mandatory that countries have had to apply sanctions on those who refuse to cover their noses and mouths with it.
In Nigeria, for instance, the Lagos State Government issued a directive to Residents to ensure they wear it or risk being arrested.
It was a major prerequisite used by the State government, and which the Federal government may adopt to ease the one-month lockdown.
In announcing the change in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidance on April 3, President Donald Trump stressed that the recommendation was voluntary and said he probably wouldn’t follow it.
Governors and Mayors, however, have started encouraging the precautions to reduce the spread of the virus by people who might not know they are infected.
Some cities have gone as far as setting fines for failing to wear a mask. In Laredo, Texas, anyone over the age of five who walks into a store or takes public transit without their mouth and nose covered by a mask or bandana could now be fined up to $1,000.
Burchett said masks might well be the key to allowing the economy to reopen and letting people out of the house, since there won’t be a coronavirus vaccine or treatment for a while.
“They are part of the solution, countries that adopted strict facemask use early, like the Czech Republic and Germany, have claimed that those policies helped keep casualty numbers low. The CDC’s new facemask policies are aimed at lowering the transmission rates in U.S. communities, and it will only be clear if it works after months of testing.” He said.
Many medical Experts have maintained that universal use of mouth and nose covering with masks is a low-risk intervention that can only assist in reducing the spread of this terrible illness.
If everyone wears a mask, individuals protect one another, reducing overall community transmission. It could even remind people not to touch their faces after touching potentially contaminated surfaces.
As the research shows, masks are not shields. It is still important to help prevent transmission by practicing social distancing by staying at least six feet away from others in public, staying home as much as possible and washing hands frequently and properly.
As much as the insistence by Experts and government officials on the use of facemasks make medical sense, the physical discomfort suffered by those who use it religiously throws up some concern that should be considered by pro-Facemask experts.
So, now that we are all wearing facemasks to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, some people complain that wearing a mask reduces their oxygen intake, forcing them to breathe in their own carbon dioxide. This leaves them feeling faint, light-headed, or “smothered.” They are also concerned about how dangerous this is, and how less oxygen and more carbon dioxide affect their health.
Other Health sector Operatives are lending their voices on the dangers of prolonged wearing of mask.
In the May 13, 2020 edition of Explore Health, an online Medical journal, it reported on the story of a driver who crashed his SUV into a pole in Lincoln Park, New Jersey, on April 23.
According to the journal, the driver actually blamed his collision on his mask. He told police he passed out because he had been wearing an N95 mask for too long.
Initially, the investigating officers believed him, writing in a Facebook post that he was the only person in the car and passed out due to “insufficient oxygen intake/excessive carbon dioxide intake.”
Shared more than 2,700 times, the post received hundreds of comments, with a few sharing their own experiences of feeling suffocated by this type of mask.
The police department later updated their post, stating that they did not know “with 100% certainty” that excessive wearing of an N95 mask was a contributing factor to the accident. They added that it is certainly possible that some other medical reason could have contributed to the driver passing out.
So, is it possible that wearing a facemask as part of social distancing can cause someone to build up so much carbon dioxide and get so little oxygen that they pass out, or worse?
Carbon dioxide is a natural by-product of the body’s respiration process, something we all breathe in and out every day. How harmful can it be?
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), it can actually be dangerous, in rare cases, adding that inhaling high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) may be life-threatening.
Hypercapnia (carbon dioxide toxicity) can also cause headache, vertigo, double vision, inability to concentrate, tinnitus (hearing a noise, like a ringing or buzzing, that is not caused by an outside source), seizures, or suffocation due to displacement of air.
In other words, for the mask to be life-threatening, Bill Carroll, PhD, an adjunct professor of chemistry at Indiana University, Bloomington, said there has to be a pretty high concentration to be capable of causing harm. Nevertheless, the emphasis here should be on “high levels”.
“CO2 is present in the atmosphere at a level of about 0.04%. It is dangerous in an atmosphere when it is greater than about 10%.” He said.
He explained that it is also possible to have too little CO2, when you exhale too fast or too often, adding that if you hold your breath, you wind up with too much CO2. The core issue is that CO2 regulates the pH of the blood; too much CO2 and the blood becomes too acidic; too little and it becomes too basic (alkaline).
“In either case, your body detects the change in acidity and you pass out, which is the body’s way of saying, ‘please stop fooling with me and breathe normally.” Said Carroll.
Facemasks are not all made equally and the extent to which a mask could affect CO2 levels depends on what it is made of, and how tightly it fits.
Illustrating with a polythene bag, Dr. Carroll said if you put a plastic bag over your head and tie it tight around your neck, no coronavirus could get in, but neither could any oxygen and you would suffocate.
“I think it’s highly unlikely that you would pass out from a lack of oxygen with a cloth mask, which generally doesn’t fit tightly to your face. When you exhale or inhale, air can go around the mask as well through the pores in the material. This is why a cloth mask does not absolutely protect you from inhaling the virus, but by disturbing your exhalation flow it tends to protect those around you from aerosols in your breath.” Said Carroll.
Carroll doubts that any cloth face covering would ever fit against the face so tight that someone would pass out from a lack of oxygen. According to him, “you would have taken it off because of the discomfort well before that happens.”
But what about the driver in the New Jersey car crash? He was wearing an N95 mask, after all, not just a regular cloth mask.
An infectious disease expert, Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Maryland, said someone wearing an N95 mask for a prolonged period of time may have alterations in their blood chemistry that could lead to changes in level of consciousness if severe.
Explaining to the journal, the expert said it is most likely to happen to those who are already predisposed to breathing difficulties, such as smokers, obese people, or individuals with COPD or emphysema.
An internist and medical advisor at Aeroflow Healthcare, Kelli Randell, MD, said prolonged use of any facemask, including the N95 respirator, has not been shown to cause carbon dioxide toxicity in healthy people. This she believed is because breathing is slightly harder with a mask.
“I do recommend that people who suffer from severe COPD or other lung diseases that make breathing difficult, carefully consider the use of facemasks,” Dr. Randell said.
Dr. Adalja adds that there’s absolutely no need for any member of the general public to be wearing an N95 respirator, which is a type of personal protective equipment (PPE) designed to protect healthcare workers and the patients they care for, maintaining that it is uncomfortable to wear, and does restrict breathing.
The medical doctor said when he wears one to take care of patients; he tried to keep it on only for as long as he has to. Bottom line?
The N95 might be uncomfortable and restrictive to the point where it affects your oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, but you really shouldn’t be wearing that anyway.
As for cloth face coverings (either store-bought or homemade), he said there is even less of a chance of breathing issues, and it is definitely not an excuse for going out without one.
Make sure your mask covers your nose and mouth but feels loose, rather than so tight, it impairs breathing.
If you continue to feel like your airways are cut off, consider other possible causes, such as a panic attack, which can trigger sudden feelings of suffocation and breathlessness.
