Will Belgium and other European countries learn from Germany and require FFP2 masks?

With the wildly spreading of the highly contagious variant virus, the governments of many European countries are also concerned about the type of masks worn by the people.

The French High Commission for Public Health has warned people to use non-medical fabric masks with caution, and also suggested to the Ministry of Health that the safety distance should be increased from 1 meter to 2 meters;

Austria clearly requires people to wear FFP2 masks in gathering places such as supermarkets, pharmacies, post offices and public transportation facilities, and a safe distance of at least 2 meters from non-residents;

Germany's federal and state governments have also agreed to impose stricter restrictions on anti-epidemic masks, requiring people to wear medical masks such as surgical masks, KN95 masks, and FFP2 masks when taking public transportation. The regulations will also apply to shopping malls and other public places. The country made it clear that passengers are no longer allowed to wear fabric masks on buses or trains, let alone covering their mouths and noses with scarves or clothing instead of masks.

At the same time, the European Medicines Agency issued a warning yesterday that if the current vaccine proves to be unable to resist the new variant virus, it will take several months to update the vaccine in the worst case. At present, the vaccine research and development teams of Oxford University and AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in the United Kingdom have begun to conduct "new version vaccine" research on the variant virus.

On the same day, the European Commission stated that Pfizer will resume normal vaccine supply to all member states from next week. Italian Prime Minister Conte also emphasized in yesterday's EU video summit that "the vaccine strategy must be implemented quickly and effectively, and vaccine delivery must comply with its commitments."

　　FFP2, European implementation standard

　　 European Union member states implement standards jointly developed by three organizations including the European Standards Institute.

　　N95, American executive standard

　　 is certified by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.

　　 KN95, China's implementation standard

　　 China's mandatory national standards are proposed by the State Administration of Work Safety and under the jurisdiction of the National Technical Committee for Standardization of Personal Protective Equipment.

　　 95 in the mask standard means exposure to a specified number of special test particles, and the particle concentration in the mask is more than 95% lower than the particle concentration outside the mask. And 95% is not the average, but the minimum.

　　 FFP2, as the European mask standard, has a minimum filtration efficiency of 94%; KN95, as a Chinese mask standard, has a minimum filtration efficiency of 95%. In terms of protection capabilities, KN95 masks can completely replace FFP2 masks.