The flu continues to spread throughout Spain and its incidence has already exceeded this week the peak occurring in the last three years. The worst is expected after the Christmas holidays and family reunions. Taking all this into account, experts once again recommend the use of the mask and there are in fact some communities where its use is already obligatory in health centers.
As a result, many people take the masks that they had kept since the pandemic. However, the truth is that, as experts point out, their effectiveness is not the same and it is even certain that some of those that have been in a drawer for years have already expired.
Generally, the shelf life of masks is one, two or three years. So those that are FPP2 models have an expiration of three years and FPP1s only have one year. So if we buy these masks in 2020, the reality is that they are no longer useful.
As explained on RTVE Lorenzo Armenterosdoctor and spokesperson for the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians, although they have been preserved and well preserved all these years, if we use them They would only serve as a barrier against droplets from a sneeze and they would no longer filter virus aerosols.
“They have a role of physical protection, but total protection, just as we were looking for with covid, or as we are looking for now to protect ourselves from the flu,” “We can’t guarantee it.”he expressed.
“There is a degradation of some of the components and therefore filtration efficiency is lost”, » another pharmaceutical expert also spoke to RTVE.
Data is skyrocketing
As figures from the Carlos III Health Institute show, the rate of influenza in primary care increased during the first week of December, from 78.3 to 164.6 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, data that represents “medium epidemic intensity”. By age, the most affected group is children aged one to four.among which the incidence increased from 214.7 to 503.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
According to ISCIII figures, the peak of last season’s flu wave, which began in autumn 2024 and ended in winter 2025, was 141.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants between January 20 and 26. These data show that the current incidence rate of influenza, already at 164.6 cases per 100,000 inhabitantsalready exceeds that of last year and, what’s more, it does so seven weeks in advance.
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