What's the point of a face mask, anyway?

What's the point of wearing a face mask is a question the people all over the world of been asking themselves these past few months. Traditionally, the point of wearing a face mask is to protect yourself from dirt, pollen, dust, bacteria or viruses, right? Doctors and nurses in hospitals, dentists, lab workers, construction workers and all sorts of other professionals have been wearing masks for ages. You can see people with allergies and hay fever who wear masks when they go out into the great outdoors during allergy season. But now during the pandemic, everyone is saying that the point of a mask is not actually to protect yourself, but to protect those around you. To keep you from sneezing on them or coughing and spreading droplets that will spread the virus. This change in attitude stems from the worldwide problem of the lack of PPE (aka personal protective equipment), available to medical and front-line workers.  Governments do not want people going out and buying up all of the "real” masks because then there’s a risk of hospitals and healthcare workers not having what they need to do their jobs. That seems reasonable, and I guess everyone can see the point. Especially considering that healthcare workers need to change out their masks after each use to ensure full protection. That ends up being a lot of masks. And most people are happy to do their part to help protect those around them by wearing a mask or some kind of face covering to help reduce asymptomatic spread of the virus, but wouldn't it be nice to also protect yourself as well as others? I mean nobody actually really wants to get this virus, and wearing a mask all the time is, let's face it, a pain in the ass. So if you're going to wear a mask, you might as well wear one that actually does something to protect you as well as others. There are lots of masks that can do this, and you don't have to get a super-expensive mask in order to get yourself some protection. Standard N95 masks, or KN95 masks are becoming quite readily available, and you can also get yourself a mask with replaceable filter, or a cloth mask that has a filter pocket. Masks with filter pockets and those with replaceable filters have a few huge advantages; first the obvious, you cut down on waste. Just think about what throwing away all of those masks is doing to the environment, and where they're all going. Think of the size of the global population, and landfills upon landfills of masks. All non-biodegradable. But there's also another advantage. Most people who buy a "good" mask, like an N95, N99 or FPP2 or FPP3, tend to wear it again and again for several weeks before throwing it out and buying a new one. Most people do not change their masks every day. I don’t know anyone who does, actually, and I am in the mask business! But remember, all of these masks are designed to be single-use disposables, only. You go out in the mask, the virus particles get caught in your mask, you go home you take off the mask (running the risk of contaminating your hands while doing so if you're not careful), and then the next day you put it on again. Same old dirty virus-filled mask. That's why you're supposed to change them out every day, and that's why using a cloth mask with a high-quality replaceable filter might just be the way to go. Protecting others around you is great, but if you're gonna wear the mask, you might as well protect yourself as well. #wearamask, #wearacleanmask, #doyourpart, #protectyourself