With COVID-19 now making its third major wave with Omicron, even vaccine-boosted people have been infected with this variant, demanding coun-termeasures such as the use of masks, avoiding gatherings and enhancing hygiene measures. Medical experts and the available data clearly point out that vaccines have reduced the hospital-ization and severity of the disease. The nature of this variant is such that while the vaccinated may not fall severely sick, they may carry the virus with or without symptoms. As a way of enhancing safety, infectious disease experts have called for the use of highly protective masks, such as nonsurgical filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs). Our research over the past two years has shown that face coverings are effective in reducing the infection (Ayodeji and Ramkumar, 2021). While ordinary face coverings do not offer maximum protection compared to three-ply nonwoven masks and filtering face-piece respirators (FFRs), they do have some role to play in countering the spread.
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