Hachi took this photo when the pandemic has begun.
Peiji told Hachi that this face mask was good wherever she went.
When wearing double masks(non-woven+cloth masks) started to be recommended, she wore this face mask under a cloth face mask, which made her be out of breath….!
Peiji is good at hygiene and risk management.
She knows what to do faster than people around her so that her plan was not often understood (sometimes it was rejected).
However, her hygiene measures was the result of her everyday effort of learning and gathering information, and almost same steps, which were supervised by professionals, were introduced by media later.
The more process like that happened, the more Hachi changed her behavior toward hygiene measures.
Therefore, we think these points and steps below are not so bad as a home hygiene measures or personal one.
For those who have a family to be protected, and those who don’t have roles of wife(or husband) and a parent like Hachi, we believe these steps might be helpful.
How to wear a surgical face mask properly
- Hide your nose and mouth without a gap, controlling a nose wire
- An Italian man put a surgical face mask on his chin, which has no effect of a surgical face mask.
- A man hid his mouth but not his nose.
There still was a possibility to get infected with virus from his nose. - Janitors disinfected subway stations in NY without any protective stuffs including surgical face masks.
The action might cause increase of number of infected people.
The same thing can be said of taking care of the sick at home.
How to throw a surgical face mask safely
-
- Don’t touch the outside of a surgical face mask
- Keep a plastic bag open
- Hold only an ear loop string of a surgical face mask and put it in aplastic bag slowly
- Go outside, remove air in a plastic bag in the opposite direction from you and tie a plastic bag
- Put a plastic bag in a rubbish bin, which is in a room where people don’t often move around
Setting
It is useful to set up boxes of surgical face masks and plastic bags near the front entrance.
Hachi moved around this way or that until she got used to these steps.
But she could get used to do these steps one by one.
These measures might/will help you to be able to imagine where is the possible area of virus and get used to do these steps more.
Added on 26th June, 2021
In 2021, we have a wider variety of face masks.
We use non-medical non-woven face mask for taking a walk, high-quality medical face mask for tense situation.
Hachi often see notes from Peiji about face masks, yet she probably needs to remember the differences without seeing the note.
As Delta variant spread all over the world, we gradually knew that Delta variant is highly infectious.
- How is Victoria’s latest COVID-19 outbreak being spread between strangers? (ABC News Australia. 2 June 2021. accessed 25 June 2021.)
In Israel, where with one of the highest vaccination rates globally (fully vaccinated rate is 57% according to The New York Times Covid World Vaccination Tracker, accessed on 26th June, 2021), people are required to wear a face mask, especially indoor, again.
- Israel restores indoor mask requirement after rise in Covid cases (The Guardian. 25th June 2021. Accessed on 26th June 2021.)
You don’t have to believe Hachi because she cannot remember the exact source, but the news in Japan told that someone who wore a cloth face mask got infected with Delta variant.
That means a cloth mask does not work anymore.
Non-woven face mask or, hopefully, surgical mask seems to be ideal.