Student Union
Surgical Masks Help Block Germs But Are No Guarantee
Imagine you're riding public transport to school or work and the man across the aisle erupts in a sneeze that explodes into the air. Halfway down the car, someone else coughs uncontrollably. Neither cover their mouth or nose.
The woman next to you is wearing a surgical mask, but you are not.
Are you doomed to get sick?
Experts say yes. And no.
Viruses -- like the coronavirus outbreak that started in Wuhan, China, recently and has migrated around the globe -- typically ride on aerosolized droplets, meaning the stuff that comes out of your nose and mouth when you cough and sneeze, explained Dr. Donald Milton, who directs the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health.
Milton studies airborne viruses and heads the University of Maryland response team to students returning to school from China and other international travel. While surgical masks are advised -- particularly the N95 particulate respirator mask -- they do not offer complete coverage.
The U.S. government warns that masks do not "filter or block very small particles in the air that may be transmitted by coughs, sneezes or certain medical procedures."
And masks can’t prevent droplets from getting into your eyes, Milton said.
"I like to describe [it] as getting hit with a ballistic droplet in the eye,” he said.
Social media has been sharing hashtag #coveryourmouth, admonishing people to use the crook of their arm, a handkerchief or a tissue to block the spew of aerosolized germs in public places.
And then there are the railings, seats, doors and myriad handles that people routinely touch moving in and out of subways, classrooms, shops and at home after also touching their faces, noses and mouths.
"Door knobs are a favorite suspect,” Milton said. So handwashing (include the wrists and lower arms, health officials say) and disinfecting are key.
Millennial Doktora (@MillennialMD) tweeted a public service announcement Jan. 21, around the time the coronavirus outbreak began to make news.
"1. Wash your hands frequently. Use rubbing alcohol if this is not possible. 2. Cover your mouth when sneezing or coughing and then wash your hands. 3. Use face mask if you have cough. 4. Stay away from the young, elderly, pregnant, & cancer patients if you have [upper respiratory tract infection] symptoms,” she tweeted. “5. Don’t kiss babies!!! Not even their hands and feet. And wash your hands before and after touching a baby. 6. Teach young kids coughing and sneezing etiquette and handwashing technique especially when they go to school. 7. Drink your water, eat your fruits and veggies."
While surgical masks are not so unusual in Asian countries, they are conspicuous in Western ones where people might be reticent to use them, reported Japan Today in a story about surgical masks in 2017. “
In the UK, nobody would wear a mask like this unless they were very, very sick, or there was otherwise something terribly wrong afoot,” Japan Today reported. The article also cited an incident where locals in a seaside English town thought Japanese tourists wearing masks might be terrorists.
Frequent traveler Francesca Domenella said, at her father's urging, she started wearing a surgical mask after returning from China Jan. 12. The Italian aerospace engineer, working as a risk engineer for a global commercial insurance company, found a mask in a stylish black that is washable.
In Europe, surgical masks are not common so I was expecting people to give me weird looks, which they do as soon as they realize I am not Asian,” Domenella, who was traveling through Germany on her way to London, told VOA in an email. “People sneeze, cough all the time and it’s better to have it. I am wearing it now too. … Makes me feel like wearing an accessory rather than a device.”
The populations most at risk of contracting the virus are the elderly, the very young and those with compromised immune systems.
Milton said the college-age population of healthy young adults is less likely to get sick.
Early screening and identification, isolation and treatment are key to controlling the spread of the virus, he said. Among the more than 1 million international students in the U.S., more than 300,000 are Chinese. The U.S. universities with the largest Chinese-student populations are in New York, California, Massachusetts, Illinois and Indiana.
"We can handle this. It depends on early detection,” he said from the University of Maryland, which enrolls about 2,000 Chinese students.
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Reports of visa checks, deportations worry Chinese STEM students in US
Geopolitical tensions and growing competition in tech between the United States and China appear to be spilling over into academia despite commitments from the world’s two biggest economies to boost people-to-people exchanges.
The United States remains the top choice for Chinese students seeking to study abroad with nearly 300,000 studying in American colleges and universities during the 2022-2023 school year. But reports of some cases that students and professors are facing extra scrutiny while passing through immigration and the deportation of others are raising concerns.
For Chen Xiaojin, a doctoral student studying semiconductor materials at a university in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, it has been six years since she returned to her hometown of Beijing.
At first, it was the COVID-19 pandemic that kept her from going home. But over the past two years, she has been deterred by accounts of Chinese students majoring in science and engineering being required to reapply for their visas upon returning to China.
She also says she is worried by reports over the past six months of Chinese students being deported, even at nearby Dulles Airport.
"My current research is relatively sensitive, and my boss [adviser] is getting funds from the U.S. Department of Defense, making it even more sensitive,” she told VOA. "I am afraid that I won't be able to return after I go back [to China]."
Chen says that if she did return to China, she would have to apply for a new visa.
In a report late last month, Bloomberg said it had found at least 20 Chinese students and scholars with valid visas who were deported at U.S. Customs since November and barred from reentry. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency does not release relevant data.
Immigration attorney Dan Berger represented one Chinese student who was deported late last year. He tells VOA Mandarin that the student studied biological sciences at Yale University and was about to complete her doctorate.
She visited her family in China and got a new visa but was deported by customs at Dulles Airport and barred from reentering the country for five years. Berger said he did not see anything suspicious in the transcript of the conversation between the student and the customs officer.
"We have seen what seems like a pattern over the last six months of Chinese PhD students being turned around…. more than I've seen in quite a while," he said.
Matthew Brazil, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, said neither country seems willing to explain the situation. However, he believes that in most cases, the United States must have valid reasons for blocking visa holders from entering the country.
In some cases, the student’s background may not match what is written on the visa application. In other cases, customs agents may also find something that the State Department missed, and once they see it, they are responsible for taking action.
"I wish the Chinese side would be specific about their students who were refused entry,” he said. “The fact that both sides are mum on details and that the Chinese side is engaged with the usual angry rhetoric means that each has security concerns. And that says to me that there was good reason for the U.S. to stop these particular applicants."
Brazil also sees a connection between the entry denials and export control regulations issued by the United States in October 2022 that restrict China's ability to obtain advanced computing chips, develop and maintain supercomputers, and manufacture advanced semiconductors.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is one of the law enforcement agencies authorized to investigate violations of export control regulations, he said.
"Beijing's intelligence agencies are known to focus attention on PRC [People's Republic of China] students and scientists headed abroad who study or work on dual-use technologies controlled under the Export Administration Act — compelling Chinese students and scientists to report on what they've learned when they return to China on holiday,” he said. “This has been true for decades."
Bill Drexel, a fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, said the U.S. government did find some cases where students tried to steal strategic technology for China.
"I think it would both not be surprising that they found some really questionable or incriminating evidence for some students,” he said. “It would also not be surprising if, in their hunt for really solid evidence, they also may have made some mistakes on other students.”
Drexel adds that “it’s just kind of an unfortunate fact of the time that we live in and the tactics that the CCP uses when it comes to these measures."
In a post on X in early May, U.S. ambassador to China Nicholas Burns tried to dispel concerns about visas and entry to the United States for students and scholars. In the post, he said "99.9% of Chinese students holding visas encounter no issues upon entering the United States.”
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal Monday, Burns said it is China that is making it impossible to promote people-to-people ties. Burns told the Journal that students attending events sponsored by the United States in China have been interrogated and intimidated.
He also said that since U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s leader Xi Jinping held their summit in San Francisco last year, China’s Ministry of State Security and other agencies had interfered with Chinese citizens’ participation at some 61 events.
At a regular briefing on Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning dismissed those accusations, saying that they did not “reflect reality" and that went against key understandings reached by both countries’ presidents in San Francisco.
“The United States, under the pretext of 'national security,' unjustifiably harasses, interrogates, and deports Chinese students in the U.S., causing them significant harm and creating a severe chilling effect,” Mao said. “The image of the United States in the minds of the Chinese people fundamentally depends on the actions of the United States itself.”
Drexel said he believes Burns’ comments about visas and students' willingness to study in the U.S. still ring true.
“On balance, it's still the case that American universities are overwhelmingly warm towards Chinese students and want them in large numbers," he said.
However, Berger, the immigration lawyer, is concerned about the chilling effect recent cases involving Chinese students could have.
"In general, we are being more careful about advising Chinese graduate students in STEM fields about traveling and letting them know that there is some small risk,” he said.
Even though the risk is small, it does seem to be real at the moment, he said.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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