London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Surgical masks protect more from germs on fingers than viruses in the air, experts say after panic buying

Surgical masks protect more from germs on fingers than viruses in the air, experts say after panic buying

Learning more about the deadly outbreak informs who should wear which type of mask, and how. Demand for masks is up to 100 times higher than usual, with prices up to 20 times higher and backlogs of four to six months, WHO director general says

The panic buying of surgical face masks cleaned out store shelves across Asia in people’s scramble to protect themselves against the coronavirus outbreak. Most doctors agree that the masks offer protection, but mainly from a wearer’s own hands rather than from airborne pathogens.

The primary purpose of surgical face masks is to prevent surgeons infecting patients during surgery, not to protect the wearer, William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said.

“The surgical mask is designed to prevent what is in the surgeon’s nose and mouth from getting into the surgical wound,” he said.

Although medical specialists do not entirely agree on the effectiveness of masks against airborne germs, they do find consensus on the danger from hands and fingers, in spreading disease by touching potentially infected surfaces such as door handles. That information seems to be of greater benefit to the general public and is the reason all health authorities stress the importance of washing hands.



“One of the things [the mask] prevents you from doing is putting your hands, your fingers, on your nose and mouth, and that may help reduce transmission,” Schaffner said.


Why is there a shortage?

Demand for surgical masks has skyrocketed in the two months since the disease now known as Covid-19 started to spread from the city of Wuhan in central China, depleting world stockpiles and causing concern at the World Health Organisation (WHO).
The virus has killed more than 1,600 people and infected in excess of 60,000 worldwide, including in Japan, Australia, Russia, Germany and the United States.

The virus has killed more than 1,600 people and infected in excess of 60,000 worldwide, including in Japan, Australia, Russia, Germany and the United States.

“The world is facing severe disruption in the market for personal protective equipment,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a media briefing on February 7. “Demand is up to 100 times higher than normal and prices are up to 20 times higher.

“The situation has been exacerbated by widespread, inappropriate use of [personal protective equipment] outside patient care. As a result, there are now depleted stockpiles and backlogs of four to six months. Global stocks of masks and respirators are now insufficient.”


Refining the advice

China is the world’s biggest manufacturer of face masks, making about half of the global output with about 20 million a day or more than 7 billion a year.

But there is still a shortage, while the number of infections rises and spreads in Asia and beyond. To make up for the shortfall, China has turned to countries including Japan and the US to import urgently needed protective gear.

Officials in China have urged citizens to wear masks in public to try to reduce the spread of infections, while the outbreak has also spurred panic buying from Hong Kong to Japan as people queue for hours to buy masks and hand sanitisers.



Marybeth Sexton, assistant professor in the infectious diseases division at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said there was a lack of good data about the effectiveness of surgical masks used by the public.

“It is possible that they have some benefit, but other interventions, including hand washing and avoiding going out in public while sick, are likely to be more useful in preventing infection,” she said.

It cannot be said that the masks are of no benefit, because they do provide some shielding of what a wearer breathes in. “It’s just that the mask is not designed to keep out those tiny particles in which the virus is transmitted from person to person,” Schaffner said.


Revisiting the choice of mask

Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s infectious disease research centre, said so-called aerosol transmission had implications for what kind of respiratory protection people should use.

Human-to-human transmission of a disease includes physical contact and an area of about two metres (6½ feet) around an infected individual, which is the approximate distance that water droplets breathed, coughed or sneezed into the air can travel before falling to the ground.

Aerosol transmission refers to minute particles that travel longer distances and typically require protection using an N95 respirator mask, which filters out 95 per cent of airborne particles, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

“That’s why N95 has become so important, because they are the only things that will handle aerosols,” Osterholm said. “If this was just droplets, surgical masks might play a bigger role, but with aerosols that’s just not true, and even the six-foot distance is questionable.

“The thing that concerns me is that we see so many Chinese citizens wearing surgical masks thinking that they are protected, but this virus may very well [have] aerosol transmission – so the surgical mask will offer very little protection at best.”

China’s National Health Commission said on Thursday that most transmission occurred through droplets and contact, and more observation was needed before concluding there were other channels for human-to-human transmission.


Are masks being misused?

N95 respirators are sold to the public, but are painful to wear for prolonged periods and must be put on correctly to work.

“There are different kinds of N95 masks, but those that are most effective require fit-testing and training to ensure they are worn correctly,” Sexton said. “They don’t provide the intended tight seal to the face if the size or fit of the mask is wrong, or if a person has any underlying facial deformity or facial hair.”

These specialised face masks are also made of thicker material compared with surgical masks, which makes it more difficult to breathe while wearing one.

“If you have it on correctly, the work of breathing is much harder, because you’re breathing only through that thick filter,” Schaffner said. “It’s also a bit claustrophobic and can get warm and humid inside the respirator after a period of time.”

The idea of training everybody in the world how to wear those, and have them worn for hours at a time, is not realistic, he said.
Raina MacIntyre, professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said the N95 respirators should be “reserved” for health care workers, because they are the ones who really need them.

“We already have a shortage, and it is essential our health workers are protected,” she said.

“Hand washing is also highly effective and should be used routinely during epidemics. Washing with water and soap is as effective as hand sanitiser.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×