The Croatian Institute of Public Health has had its work cut out for it lately. With new and stricter measures being implemented all the time at the state level, the latest of which being a ban on people leaving their place of registered permanent residence, the Institute has even more work on its hands keeping people up to date and calming potential hysteria.
If there is one thing that might be even more heavily discussed than coronavirus, then its the masks themselves. Many people are tired of the endless questions about masks, and the fact that they keep rapidly selling out and being worn by people for whom they serve little to no purpose.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 24th of March, 2020, the director of the Croatian Institute of Public Health, Krunoslav Capak, once again went into more detail at a press conference, at which he talked about whether healthy people should wear disposable surgical masks or not, and how useful canvas masks really are.
Capak said that ordinary cotton masks, when it comes coronavirus, have a more psychological meaning than they do anything else at all.
"For coronavirus, a three-layer surgical mask has been proven to be a barrier because it has a single plastic layer - which is why it's recommended for those already ill to prevent it from spreading further. For medical professionals and those in contact with the sick, there are special masks that completely protect them when they're used properly.
Requiring people to wear masks when entering a store makes no sense if you're talking about healthy people. For those who are ill, yes, it's good to wear masks, especially if they're sneezing or the like, but it's not necessary. We haven't made recommendations for wearing a mask for people who are healthy, nor do we think those recommendations are useful,'' Capak said.
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