In a press conference Friday at the Urban League of Broward County, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis found himself holding an N95 face mask, the kind with two elastic loops that go around the head, not just over the ears. He looked at it seeming to be confused, then grabbed the front of the mask with one hand and pulled the top loop over his head. He then touched the front of the mask—a big no-no—a second time, trying to adjust it over his nose and chin.
The adjustment was impossible because—as DeSantis stood outside in fairly close proximity to other people—the bottom loop was dangling loose below his chin, rendering the whole mask useless. He also put the mask on upside down as shown in the video with the metal nose adjustment is on his chin.
This press conference took place in the zip code with the second highest number of positive cases of Covid-19 in Florida.
The N95 masks fit tightly to the face and have the highest filtration efficiency, blocking 95 percent of particles of 0.3 microns or larger. An N95 mask protects medical workers who come into contact with high doses of the virus while visiting and carrying out medical procedures on multiple patients. The rest of us don’t need that level of protection, so these masks should be reserved for health care workers only. To learn more about how these masks work, check out this video animation from the Arizona State University Risk Innovation Lab.
