Why Belgium does not require the much safer FFP2 face masks

Why Belgium does not require the much safer FFP2 face masks

Not wearing a professional FPP2 face mask? Then you are no longer welcome in the shop or on public transport in Austria or the German state of Bavaria. Switzerland is also considering making FFP2 masks mandatory, now that the British variant – as in all of Europe – is causing concern.To get more news about CE antiepidemic mask, you can visit tnkme.com official website.

At the moment, the FFP2 masks in our country are reserved for the medical staff. “FFP2 masks have one big advantage,” says virologist Steven Van Gucht. “They block aerosols much better than regular face masks.” Due to the moisture in our breath, the droplets that we exhale, so-called aerosols, are relatively large, but once they are in the room, they shrink, making it relatively easy to get through mouth masks, but not through the sophisticated FFP2 masks. mouth masks therefore mainly protect your fellow man, the FFP2 masks also protect the wearer.
Yet that does not mean that the FFP2 mouth masks lead to more protection anyway, because they come with a whole manual, says Van Gucht: “A specialized company visits our lab every year to ensure that these masks fit the face perfectly. Because if anything of air can escape, those masks don’t work better than a simple mouth mask. ” And since even beginning beard growth creates a distance between the skin and the mask, the mask only works optimally on men with a clean shaven jawline.
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According to Van Gucht, FFP2 face masks could therefore lead to a false sense of security. “You can already see that people think that they should not keep their distance because they wear a mouth mask. While that, just like ventilating indoor spaces, is even more important. ”

Most infections do not happen on public transport or in the shop, but through close contact with friends, colleagues or family. “And those are the times when we take off our mouth masks. That would be met FFP2 masks, which tension very hard, only happen even faster, ”says Van Gucht.

FFP2 face masks also come with a hefty price tag, as they cost between 2 and 6 euros each and can only be used once. The German government therefore provides 12 vouchers for FFP2 face masks for anyone over 60 or suffering from a condition.“The question is: how long can you keep it up?” Says virologist Marc Van Ranst. (KU Leuven). “When you know that this costs 6 euros per person per day, and that for about 34 million people, you have to ask yourself whether the added value outweighs the costs.”

Then there is the question of whether manufacturers can handle a sharp rise in demand. In Belgium, the dire shortage of FPP2 mouth masks at the start of the corona crisis – partly due to the destruction of the strategic stock – and the importation of millions of unusable mouth masks is still fresh in our minds.

In the meantime, local players have focused on the production of mouth masks. For example, the Torhout game manufacturer Cartamundi retrained itself in a few months to become a producer of FFP2 mouth masks. Under the name Medimundi, it wants to provide the healthcare sector with millions of masks, although there will also be a web shop for the general public. Nevertheless, Belgium remains very dependent on Chinese manufacturers for the supply of FFP2 mouth masks, with delivery times taking up to four weeks. “It is therefore far from certain whether there are enough FPP2 masks for large-scale use. If every country wants to use it for a large audience, shortages will arise again in no time, ”says Marc Van Ranst.


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