Have you seen the latest meme claiming that if masks work then why do we need social distance and if social distancing works then why do we need to wear masks? This lame logic is taking hold in the world of social media so I thought I would provide a way for folks to better understand the need for BOTH face coverings/masks and social distancing. As adults, most of us drive a car daily and we have some basic safety measures that go with driving a car: maintaining a safe distance from the vehicle in front of us and wearing our seatbelt. Now let’s compare these driving safety measures with the COVID safety measures…
With COVID we have two (2) INDEPENDENT safety practices we are being asked to follow:
- Maintain a social distance of at least 6′
- Wear a mask/covering
Both of these safety practices are independent of each other, meaning that if one fails it does not cause the failure of the other practice. We do this “layering” as we know that people, especially UNTRAINED people, will have a tendency to NOT do both practices well or even not do both practices. The social distancing is a form of ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL and the face mask/covering is similar to PPE. And when hazards/risks are HIGH we will oftentimes use ALL THREE (3) layers of controls -but in society, implementing engineering controls is really difficult. So we do our best and utilize ADMIN and PPE in society to attempt to control a pandemic. But we do BOTH in the hopes that at least one (1) action will aid us in our safety. Sort of like driving…
With DRIVING we have two (2) INDEPENDENT safety practices we follow:
- Maintain a distance of at least sixteen (16) car lengths from the car in front of us
- Wear your seatbelt
Both of these safety practices are independent of each other, meaning that if one fails it does not cause the failure of the other practice. We do this “layering” as we know that people, especially younger drivers, will have a tendency to NOT do distancing practices well and some will not do either practice. The safe distancing is a form of ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL and the seatbelt is similar to PPE. And when hazards/risks are HIGH we will oftentimes use ALL THREE (3) layers of controls – and in modern-day vehicles, we have many “engineering controls” that will aid us in crash avoidance and mitigation of consequences after a crash. But we do BOTH in the hopes that at least one (1) action will aid us in our safety.
So it is clear we need BOTH practices to protect us based on the level of risk posed by the pandemic and simply driving our car down the interstate!