With omicron surging, experts recommend upgrading your face mask

Health officials and experts are increasingly saying it’s time to upgrade your face masks, especially in light of the omicron surge.

California’s public health director and health officer, Dr. Tomás Aragón, says it’s important to improve the fit of masks and their filtration — making enhancements that go beyond old, loose, cloth face coverings that became popular in 2020. Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Medicine, agreed. Since omicron is twice as infectious, Wachter wrote, “an encounter that you could have tolerated for Delta may well infect you (with) Omicron. Knowing this, it’s worth upgrading the protection you get from your mask.”

Here’s the latest advice from the California Department of Public Health ranking the protectiveness of certain kinds of masks:

The best masks are N95, KN95 and KF94 masks. Don’t wear an additional face covering on top of these masks.

Less effective, but still better than loose cloth masks alone, are surgical masks — commonly called blue masks because there’s usually a blue-tinted color on the outside of the masks.

They can be made more effective by placing a cloth mask over the surgical mask, which make the fit of the face covering more snug. (Officials don’t recommend wearing two surgical masks.)