Anette Mäder already had experiences with medical masks during her time as a nurse: “Eight hours with a mask in the operating room, that was completely normal.” She would never have thought that she would have to deal so intensively with the subject again. She has lived in Rudolstadt since 1996 and works as an occupational safety engineer, first employed, then freelance since 2013.
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She has never regretted coming to Thuringia at the time: “Working mothers have it much easier here. They gave me opportunities here that I would never have had in Hessen.” And that even though their specialty, occupational safety, is not necessarily popular with companies. “We are actually only booked because it is compulsory,” smiles the entrepreneur.
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Nevertheless, she has a lot of different customers, mostly from medium-sized companies. Construction companies, craft businesses, care services, even a school. The authorities prescribe annual occupational safety instructions. The State Office for Consumer Protection, Occupational Safety and Health Department is responsible for the case. The spectrum of Anette Maeder’s tasks ranges from advice and concept development to very specific on-site training. She studied environmental technology and hygiene technology and is one of the very few women who work in this field. “In the end, however, I am not responsible for occupational safety, but the companies themselves.”
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Everything different through Corona
Then came April 2020 and with it the ordinances that also reached into the companies. At that time, Anette Mäder received a lot of calls from her customers, everyone had different questions. Together with her professional association, the VdSI, she had the most important information compiled to cushion the greatest uncertainties.
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We have already provided further training on the use of masks in the past. But now everything is different. Self-sewn fabric masks that are then even washed yourself were previously unthinkable in occupational safety!
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The medical masks were already used in retirement homes before Corona, but also in care services and in the food industry, the FFP2 masks wherever work is done with dust. Metal workers, wood processors, builders – they all already knew these masks. And also the prescribed wearing times. 75 minutes with a mask, then a 30-minute break.
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Error in wearing times of the mask
But even then there is a big misunderstanding, says Anette Mäder: “It’s not a break in the sense of sitting down and feet up, but a break from the mask. That means you have to do 30 minutes of work that doesn’t require a mask . ” For example, the tiler who cuts his tiles under the mask has to stop after 75 minutes and do something else for which he does not need a mask. “He could clean up his workplace or get new material,” says the expert.
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What has not changed: Even before Corona, the craftsmen and construction workers complained in their courses that physically strenuous work was much more difficult to endure with the mask. “But before Corona, nobody was interested except the craftsmen.” The masks were simply tools in some professions, most people had nothing to do with them. “Nobody could have imagined that we would have to go shopping with these masks on.”
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The classic: usage errors
This also creates a problem for Anette Mäder: “The employees in the company are taught how to use the masks correctly. Everyone else is now on their own.” Of course, there are instructions on the packaging, but these are often not enough. Anette Mäder regularly sees people who use the FFP2 masks incorrectly. So she explains it to us again.
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