In the case of pandemics, such as the one we are experiencing now, two major questions must be asked:

• How can the players in a specific professional domain pursue their activity while being protected?
• What can the industry in that specific domain do to be of help in fighting the pandemics?

Finding answers to these questions can be facilitated, of course, when the pandemics start in other countries, and when information is at hand about the pathogen and the way it infects people. Pathogens can be viruses or a bacteria or single-cell higher organisms such as some yeasts. A pathogen can pass from one person to another in several ways; for instance, via the respiratory route, by sexual transmission, by cutaneous contact, by ingestion, by blood transfusion etc.

A pathogenic agent can be transmitted via the respiratory route when it is released by the infected persons in the form of liquid droplets called aerosols that contain the pathogenic agent itself.
These droplets can be taken up by surrounding people who are close enough to breathe them in, before they “dilute out” or fall to the ground. People might think that masks will hinder the breathing of aerosols., but this is not absolutely true.

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Published the 1st May 2020