Your Children Need to Wear Masks During a Pandemic? (Pedcast by Doc Smo and Sonya Corina Williams)

Everyone wants to stop the scourge of Covid-19 as soon as possible. Masks seem to be an important tool to that end. In fact, they seem to be our most potent defense. In today's pedcast, I am going to pass on what I have learned about making masking as effective as possible and give you some tips on helping your children adjust to wearing them. Image by Pixabay Musical Introduction Goal of Masking Your Children When SARS-CoV-2 first came on the scene, spread was thought to happen mainly through touch of contaminated surfaces; things like doorknobs, pencil sharpeners, or shared food. Since those early days, many experts now feel that the SARS-CoV-2 germ can get into the air in a very fine form known as an aerosol and travel from person to person, just like smells do. If this is true, even being farther than 6 feet (2 meters) can infect a child or adult, especially if that exposure is in a poorly ventilated closed space like a small room for an extended period of time (currently thought to be 15 minutes or greater). If this is true, masks become an even more important tool to protect your children and family from getting Covid-19 because they reduce the spread outward of contaminated droplets and also impede the mask wearer's breathing in of aerosol. And masks seem to work. No matter how you feel about having your family wear masks, I think if you look around the world at places where masking is accepted as necessary, the spread of all types of viral respiratory infections is much more manageable and contained.  During sick season, the masks just come out without hesitation. In the U.S., What Have We Learned About Masking? So, what have we learned recently about masks with respect to the spread of viral respiratory infections in the U.S.? What does the science show? A recent study found the following when a person coughs; "With no mask, the aerosol jet extended an average of 8 feet from the head. A handkerchief folded according to instructions from the US Surgeon General reduced that distance to