“Members and guests must wear a face mask that covers their mouth and nose at all times,” Costco said on its COVID-19 updates page. “Individuals who are unable to wear a face mask due to a medical condition must wear a face shield. Entry to Costco will be granted only to those wearing a face mask or face shield.”

Read Full Story at: USAtoday.com

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Focus group were given gloves, surgical masks, and alcohol hand sanitizer; it took only two weeks for the first workers wearing only masks to develop symptoms – of 62 tested, a dozen had been infected.

When the program started again, a clear plastic face shield has been given in addition to protection used in the first round. The health workers were also given ethanol to clean their face shields. From all workers tested, zero were positive.

As indicated the first, the group wearing only masks showed more symptoms after exposure, where a group of healthcare providers that used both shield and a mask showed a drastically reduced number of cases to zero. Thus, the face shields are likely what provided the critical difference.

The original study has also been published on JAMA Network on August 17, 2020.

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As the daily debate continues within the experts’ community, the latest findings suggest that face shields in combination with a face mask give complete protection. The face mask, as CDC, recommends for a source control and face shields to prevent eyes and the rest of the face. The best practice and CDC guidelines shows that a face shield that extends below the chin and wraps on the sides of the face is most effective.

Face shields additionally keep the mask away and less prone to more considerable exposure of viral load. As recent studies confirmed, 90% of the direct sneeze or cough could be stopped leaving the mask to work additional 10 % for the ultimate protection.

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Unlike masks — which people tend to let slip under their nose, or worse, off their face completely — “it’s hard to wear a face shield incorrectly,” Perencevich says.

Incorrect wear of face masks produce an increasing risk of spreading infectious particles trapped on a surface of the mask around the face and leaving contamination to enter your body freely. Touching a mask with hands to adjust it frequently creates another example of incorrect wear, leaving contaminants on your hands that can later be transferred to the face or eyes.

Just make sure that face shield is positioned properly on your head. The forehead band should sit approximately 1/2 inch to 1 inch above the eyebrows, according to a University of Iowa Health Care explainer, and the bottom of the shield should sit below chin level.

Additionally, it’s important to notice that face shields are very easy to disinfect and keep clean between the uses.

According to the CDC recommendation, face shield should extend bellow the chin and wrap around the face on the wearer.

It’s also a double protection, when face shield is worn with a mask Dr. Perencevich says. “The face shield will protect the mask from being contaminated and then block additional droplets from your whole face, including your eyes.”

According to Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, eye protection is equally important in reducing the spread of the virus. The mucosa is in the nose, mouth, but you also have mucosa in the eyes. For complete protection, they both recommend protecting the eyes in addition to the nose and mouth.

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Jennifer Veltman, MD, chief of infectious diseases at Loma Linda University Health, says in the interview that the answer is not that simple.

“It’s too complicated to compare a face shield to a face mask because people are not all wearing the same masks,” Dr. Veltman says. “In the community, some people are wearing bandannas, homemade masks or N-95 masks. There has not been a study comparing face shields to masks, and doing such study would be challenging since mask materials vary greatly in the community.”

Dr. Veltman argues that research has found that face shields are beneficial if someone cannot wear a mask. ”If someone coughs 18 inches from you while you are wearing a face shield, the immediate viral exposure is reduced by 96%,” Veltman says. ”If the person remains coughing and talking with you for 30 minutes, then the face shield blocks 68% of the small air particles,” she adds.

Prolonged exposure to the infectious particles from the cough or sneeze reduces the amount of protection that the face shield can provide, Dr.Veltman says. If combined with a face mask with a face shield, it can provide added protection. This is a reason why it is essential and widely used in hospitals and healthcare settings.

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“In combination with a mask, a face shield could potentially provide additional protection against COVID-19,” Sulmonte says. That’s because face shields may “create an extra barrier from large droplets, provide eye protection and minimize how often you touch your face,” he explains.

Both CDC and Sulmonte agree that fit and coverage are essential when choosing a face shield. CDC suggests that the face shield should extend bellow the chin and wrap around the sides of the face. For direct sneeze or cough, this would stop contaminants hitting your eyes or part of the face and preserving face mask getting direct exposure as well.

As mentioned earlier face shields are excellent in areas where social distancing is not possible, like in grocery stores, barber shops and salons, cafés and bakeries. Face shields also remind people to social distance because of its appearance as well as those of us who have a habit of touching a face. It reminds us not to do so.

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“(The CDC) isn’t worrying about the benefit to the wearer,” Dr. Adalja said. “They’re basing it on an idea of not looking at the face covering wholistically but looking at one aspect of it. Outside of a health care setting, a face shield is equivalent to how people effectively wear masks,” he added.

Face shields should be included as part of strategy in safely and securely reduce transmission in public setting. It prevents people of touching their face and reducing spreading pathogens.

There are many benefits to face shields according to Dr. Adalja. He argues they are much more likely to be worn correctly than face masks, which can slip below the nose and are removed more often. Face shields also provide eye protection that masks cannot.

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Dr. Birx stated: ”The thing about the face shields – we think that could protect the individuals and that it would decrease the ability for them to touch their eyes and spread the virus as well as those droplets coming towards them. So there are two different technologies for two different reasons.”

”If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it. It’s not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can.” says Dr. Fauci, “You have mucosa in the nose, mucosa in the mouth, but you also have mucosa in the eye,” he added. “Theoretically, you should protect all the mucosal surfaces.”

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One crucial aspect that contributes to the face shield longevity, is the storage. When not in use, we recommend a shield to be stored in the plastic bag that it comes with or simply finding a larger ziplock bag that can serve the same purpose. We suggest cleaning the shield after each use and storing it in the bag until the next use.

Cleaning the shield is a simple process, simply by dampening paper towel with an alcohol and making few passes on a both outside and inside plastic shell. You can also use commercially available disinfection wipes from your grocery store, such as Clorox wipes. Every so often, after long days of wearing, you may want to allocate a few minutes in cleaning the webbing or band part too. Lighter color face shields may require little more attention then darker colors. We recommend using liquid soap and water, and gently rubbing the band to clean, allowing it to dry before storing it in a plastic bag or wearing it. During the same time that you are cleaning a band, we also suggest running water over the plastic part of the shield as overtime a film can build up on the suffice from use of disinfectant, making a shield to fog up.

Some people question can they write the name on the shield or decorate it to personal likings. A lot of workplaces actually encourage in doing so, and it makes it easier not to mix the shields with other people. It is recommended that only one person wears each shield. Keep in mind if you decorate your band, it will be a little more challenging to clean, but on the other hand, it will be personalized to you.

Finally, when you decide that you no longer need the face shield, you can recycle the clear PET lense. The clear PET lens is also PBA-free.

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Amesh Adalja, M.D., a pandemic preparedness expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, says, “There’s a lot of at least biological possibility to suspect that shields are definitely better than homemade face masks, and maybe even better than other types of masks as well, because they not only prevent you from spreading it and because it also covers your eyes, it provides more protection to the mucus membranes of your face where you might be getting infected.”

The biggest argument with experts that favor the shields is that face shields remind the wearer not to touch the face and others around to keep the social distance. This is especially effective with young children in school settings where social distance is hard to maintain. Face shields are reusable and easy to keep clean and disinfected after each use.

Dr. James Cherry, a distinguished research professor and infectious disease expert at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, points out measles and adenoviruses as examples of viruses that are known to infect people through their eyes. He is suggesting that, with coronavirus, eye protection is essential. There is also a collection of interviews from COVID-19 infected patients published on AARP that believe that reason for their infection was lack of eye protection and with a face mask being used.

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