{"id":9622,"date":"2026-01-09T00:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/?p=9622"},"modified":"2026-01-15T01:13:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T06:13:24","slug":"face-masks-inadequate-and-should-be-swapped-for-respirators-who-is-advised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/face-masks-inadequate-and-should-be-swapped-for-respirators-who-is-advised\/","title":{"rendered":"Face masks \u2018inadequate\u2019 and should be swapped for respirators, WHO is advised"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Surgical face masks provide inadequate protection against flu-like illnesses including Covid, and should be replaced by respirator-level masks \u2013 worn every time doctors and nurses are face to face with a patient, according to a group of experts urging changes to <a target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/world-health-organization\">World Health Organization<\/a> guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>There is \u201cno rational justification remaining for prioritising or using\u201d the surgical masks that are ubiquitous in hospitals and clinics globally, given their \u201cinadequate protection against airborne pathogens\u201d, they said in <a target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/whn.global\/a-call-for-the-universal-use-of-respirators-in-healthcare\/\">a letter to WHO chief Dr&nbsp;Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is even less justification for allowing healthcare workers to wear no face covering at all,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Surgical face masks provide inadequate protection against flu-like illnesses including Covid, and should be replaced by respirator-level masks \u2013 worn every time doctors and nurses are face to face with a patient, according to a group of experts urging changes to <a target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/world-health-organization\">World Health Organization<\/a> guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>There is \u201cno rational justification remaining for prioritising or using\u201d the surgical masks that are ubiquitous in hospitals and clinics globally, given their \u201cinadequate protection against airborne pathogens\u201d, they said in <a target=\"_blank\" lang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/whn.global\/a-call-for-the-universal-use-of-respirators-in-healthcare\/\">a letter to WHO chief Dr&nbsp;Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is even less justification for allowing healthcare workers to wear no face covering at all,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/news\/face-masks-inadequate-and-should-be-swapped-for-respirators-who-is-advised\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Face masks \u2018inadequate\u2019 and should be swapped for respirators, WHO is advised<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[18,295,19,245,14,143,283],"class_list":["post-9622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-covid-19","tag-ffp3-respirators","tag-masks","tag-n95-respirators","tag-sars-cov-2","tag-universal-masking","tag-world-health-organization","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9625,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9622\/revisions\/9625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stillcoviding.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}