This may cause anger in some, but it must be said in these crazy times… To claim any level of respiratory protection, the respirator MUST BE:
- NIOSH/MSHA approved, AND
- FIT-TESTED using an OSHA prescribed protocol, AND
- the user must be properly trained in its use and limitations.
Thus a “face covering” that is NOT MANAGED to meet these REQUIREMENTS is in NO WAY providing protection against any type of exposure. So “face coverings” do NOT protect the wearer – they help contain any infections the wearer may spread, be it any germ. In basic terms…You do not wear a face-covering to PROTECT YOU, you wear a face covering to protect those around you from YOU!
The best scenario I can give you…
when/if you ever go visit a pre-mature baby, the baby is NOT infectious, yet you are asked to don a clinical “face mask”. This is to protect the baby from your germs – not you from the newborn baby.
This is also the drive to provide the health care providers with actual N95 FFPs, which actually are RESPIRATORS, and do protect the wearer from exposures when they meet all the requirements I stated above!
I hope this helps draw the line in the debate of face coverings vs respirators.