Owais Gul
Srinagar : At a time when COVID-19 cases and deaths spike in Jammu and Kashmir, the health experts on Thursday termed the use of face masks and maintaining health hygiene as only a preventive defense to save precious lives.
Talking to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), a prominent Pulmonologist, Dr. Khursheed Ahmad Dar said that it is pivotal for an individual to wear a mask to prevent him as well as his family and also near and dear ones from getting infected.
“If we see the foreign countries, the graph of the cases has gone down only after the people wore face masks and ensured hand hygiene,” he said, adding that when a person is wearing a mask, he is closing the main route for the virus to enter into his body.
Appealing people to wear face masks and ensure hand hygiene, Dr Khursheed said that the situation being witnessed at present can easily be controlled if the people will follow the health guidelines especially wearing face masks. He said that it is the only preventive defense to save lives.
“It is not mandatory for people to wear N-95, but a simple mask is must to prevent the virus from spreading,” he said, adding that the people wearing face masks should remove it properly whenever needed.
“They (people) should not touch it on the front side, but should remove it at ear. Besides, the mask should not be removed and put under the chin,” he said.
A prominent flu expert, Dr. Nisar-ul-Hassan told KNO that the virus is spreading with the respiratory droplets while there is some emerging evidence that the virus is also airborne. “Therefore, wearing masks protect an individual’s droplet from coming out and it also protects him from getting another person’s droplets into his body,” he said.
“If a person is infected, he can’t infect others by wearing face masks as the virus has to enter through the respiratory system,” he added.
He also echoed the similar views about the masks, saying that people can use surgical masks, which are available in the market at cheapest rates. He added that N-95 can only be used by those who are dealing with the COVID patients.
“Wearing a mask is the most important tool with us and we have seen the scenario, by not wearing the masks, it helped to increase the number of cases and deaths here,” he said.
Apart from physical distancing, he said changing of masks is recommended after every six hours, adding that a person can use a mask for three-eight hours and can keep it ideally for drying in the sun following which it can be reused.
He also appealed people to use homemade masks only if they don’t have the scientifically designed masks available—(KNO)
