Shafaq News/ The use of protective masks, especially masks, is an old practice to avoid damage to the human body, especially in sensitive parts, including the respiratory system; masks have been used early in many countries by workers, especially those who have experienced an industrial renaissance, and generate industries that may produce harmful substances during their work, including tobacco and cigarette production factories, as well as chemical and alcohol production plants, including detergents, and others. Doctors also used them in their surgical operations in various stages, as well as the protesters in some countries of the world against the gases released by the police to disperse them.

Then Covid- 19 pandemic caused by the novel Corona virus invaded the world to spread the use of masks widely throughout the whole world.

There is no doubt that wearing masks is required in many countries around the world in order to prevent an outbreak of Covid-19 infection. Although the World Health Organization (WHO) initially announced that wearing the mask is limited to people who deal with infected Covid-19, before returning and changing its position; However, the UN has warned in successive statements in its accounts that wearing the masks alone is not enough, but rather it must be accompanied by other measures.

Perhaps the most important of these measures is to keep adistance from others of at least one meter, as well as to clean and wash your hands well and constantly, and not to touch the face or the mask at all.

Where WHO updated its guidance on Friday to recommend that governments ask everyone to wear fabric face masks in public areas where there is a risk of transmission of COVID-19 to help reduce the spread of the pandemic disease.

In its new guidance, prompted by evidence from studies conducted in recent weeks, the WHO stressed that face masks were only one of a range of tools that can reduce the risk of viral transmission, and should not give a false sense of protection

“Masks on their own will not protect you from COVID-19,” the WHO’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a briefing.

The WHO’s technical lead expert on COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a Reuters interview: “We are advising governments to encourage that the general public wear a mask. And we specify a fabric mask - that is, a non-medical mask.

We have new research findings,” she added. “We have evidence now that if this is done properly it can provide a barrier ... for potentially infectious droplets.”

But the advice has been broadened to recommend staff coming into contact with any patients or residents in clinics, hospitals, care homes and long-term residential facilities should also wear masks at all times, she said.