Bandanas or other homemade cloth masks are doing little or nothing to protect people from breathing in coronavirus particles or to protect people from those who are already ill, Betsy McCaughey, who chairs the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths and who is a former lieutenant governor of New York, told Newsmax TV Monday.
"There's so much scientific literature that demonstrates that homemade cloth masks provide 2% to 3% of the protection you need," McCaughey told Newsmax TV's "The Chris Salcedo Show," echoing comments she made in a Fox News column over the weekend. "In other words 97% of the viral particles that are emitted when someone sneezes or coughs can go right through that mask and get to you."
She added that when she sees Surgeon General Jerome Adams demonstrating a homemade mask, or New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, "whose new style is a western kerchief pulled up over his nose or mouth," it's "very misleading."
"It's not even a laughing matter," McCaughey said. "People are doing this thinking they are protecting themselves."
Even masks that are made out of four layers of cloth provide just prevention for 13% of particles, said McCaughey.
Instead, people need surgical-type masks, made of polypropylene, a nonwoven cloth, which allows for 53% protection, she said. The best masks are the N95 version, which filter out 95% of particles, but the government wants them to be reserved for medical workers, she noted.
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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