Researchers recently conducted a randomized controlled trial on face masks in Guinea-Bissau. The team distributed over a thousand of indigenously manufactured cloth masks to people and help in finding masks’ usefulness against the spread of the disease.
Face masks have become the symbolic image for the pandemic that has killed more than 1 million. Medical-grade masks certainly lower down the rate of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus.
However, for other varieties of the face mask, the data are insufficient and chaotic. The science of face masks showed that decreases the chances of transmitting or getting the virus, and few studies even suggest that masks decrease the severity of infection during contraction of the coronavirus. Presently, a variety of face masks worn by the people. However, the question remains with the public is that whether people should worry about wearing cloth masks or surgical masks? Studies found four times lower mortality rate in places where face masks are made mandatory by the leaders, compared to other regions. The study included data from 200 countries, including Mongolia with no deaths from COVID-19 and started using the mask from January 2020. These studies depend on the belief of people wearing masks properly. But, research in animal models of healthy hamsters in adjoining cages separated by surgical-mask partitions showed that around two-thirds of the uninfected animals got infected with the SARS-CoV-2. Whereas only 25% of the animals protected by mask material caught the virus, but the severity was less. The findings not only proves that the use of mask not only protects the wearer and their contacts but also from severe illness. In a study published, suggested that wearing a mask reduces a load of virus received, developing infections milder or asymptomatic. Higher the viral dose, more severe the inflammatory response may occur. But the question of how the virus makes its way into the air and spread infection? When a person talks or breaths, coughs, a fine mist of liquid particles shoots in the air. Few of them are noticeable and known as droplets while the rest of it can be microscopic, classified as aerosols. These droplets travel through the air and can reach an individual’s eyes, mouth or nose, causing infection. The concern remains with the fact that aerosols have the potential to be in the air for minutes to hours.
References
1. "Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer" by Monica Gandhi, Journal of General Internal Medicine, 2020.
2. "Effectiveness of Surgical and Cotton Masks in Blocking SARS–CoV-2: A Controlled Comparison in 4 Patients" by Seongman Bae, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2020.