A post shared thousands of times on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic says disposable surgical masks should be worn “colored side out” if a person is sick.
In January, AFP Fact Check debunked similar misinformation circulating in Sri Lanka and the Philippines., Prestige Ameritech, the largest domestic surgical mask maker in the US, said by email that surgical masks are not reversible., “Masks have a front and a back. For proper performance, they should be worn correctly,” the vice president of the company, Mike Bowen, told AFP., “Generally speaking, the colored side should face outward. I suppose that someone somewhere for some reason might make a mask with a colored inner layer, but I’ve never seen one,” Bowen added., If the mask is all white and does not have a distinctive, pre-bent nosepiece, Bowen said\xa0“the side that should face the wearer is the side where the edge of the bottom-most folded pleat points toward the ceiling.”, Different countries have recommended different approaches to mask wearing during the pandemic, which has left roughly 165,000 people dead worldwide and pushed some health authorities to recommend face coverings to help slow its spread., According to the World Health Organization (WHO), medical masks cannot currently protect against the novel coronavirus -- which causes the COVID-19 disease -- “when used alone.”, The WHO’s latest guidance on masks is available here., A surgical mask is “not considered respiratory protection,” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says in a graphic, as it does not “provide the wearer with a reliable level of protection from inhaling smaller airborne particles.”, The CDC currently does recommend the use of face coverings for the general public to help slow the spread of COVID-19, but not to keep the wearer from becoming infected., Surgical masks are currently considered “critical supplies” by the CDC and are reserved for “healthcare workers and other medical first responders.”, For more of AFP Fact Check’s work on claims surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, visit our coronavirus verification hub., , Copyright © AFP 2017-2020.  All rights reserved.  Users can access and consult this website and use the share features available for personal, private, and non-commercial purposes.  Any other use, in particular any reproduction, communication to the public or distribution of the content of this website, in whole or in part, for any other purpose and/or by any other means, without a specific licence agreement signed with AFP, is strictly prohibited.  The subject matter depicted or included via links within the Fact Checking content is provided to the extent necessary for correct understanding of the verification of the information concerned.  AFP has not obtained any rights from the authors or copyright owners of this third party content and shall incur no liability in this regard.  AFP and its logo are registered trademarks.
Post gives inaccurate surgical mask instructions during COVID-19 pandemic | AFP Fact Check