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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday June 13 2020, @04:38PM   Printer-friendly
from the every-little-bit-helps dept.

Face masks don't even have to work especially well to be effective:

Advice on whether or not to use face masks to limit the spread of the pandemic has varied from country to country, even differing by location within countries. These policies have had to balance whether there were sufficient supplies for medical personnel to divert some to the general public. And the whole issue was decided without a clear idea of whether face masks were actually effective against SARS-CoV-2.

But there has been reason to think masks would at least be somewhat affective, based on studies of the spread of droplets of material we expel while coughing or sneezing. And a recent analysis suggested a large group of individual studies collectively pointed to their effectiveness. But that analysis left a large degree of uncertainty about how effective they'd be at the population level and how face mask use would interact with other policy decisions.

The situation left us needing population-level modeling, which a group of UK scientists has now provided. The group's model indicates that face masks don't have to be especially effective to slow the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and can even bring benefits if they make people more vulnerable to infection. But to really control the pandemic, they will have to be combined with a lockdown if we want to see the total infected population shrink.

[...] Right now, we just don't know enough about SARS-CoV-2 and protective gear to evaluate which of these models best reflect reality. But the models do set some reasonable bounds about what we might aim for. For example, they indicate that masks don't need to be especially good if we get enough people wearing them and couple their use to other policy initiatives.

Journal Reference:
Stutt, R., Retkure, R., Bradley, M., Gilligan, C., and Colvin, J. A modelling framework to assess the likely effectiveness of facemasks in combination with lock-down in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, Proceedings of the Royal Society A (2020) (DOI: 10.1098/rspa.2020.0376)


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @04:50PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @04:50PM (#1007477)

    Masks, even bandanas, helps prevent stuff from the mouth spreading out. It probably provides a level of protection for the wearer, but it's more effective in protecting others from you.

    So, wear a mask, at least when in indoors with other people around. You may be an asymptomatic carrier. It's a common courtesy in times of epidemic.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @07:25PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @07:25PM (#1007522)
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @07:42PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @07:42PM (#1007525)

      That's because you are illiterate. From the piece itself:

      With the lower standards even for the best homemade masks, the WHO stressed that these masks are for source control only, not personal protection—that is, they can help prevent the person wearing the mask from spreading the virus, but they will not necessarily protect the wearer from becoming infected....

      that fabric [masks] can actually provide a mechanistic barrier. If someone were infected with COVID-19, it could prevent those droplets from going through and infecting someone else...

      • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:06PM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:06PM (#1007530)

        Masks, even bandanas

        Keep reading.

        Cotton, handkerchief, filtration efficiency: 1.1%. Filter quality factor, 0.48. (Minimum Q-factor: 3)

        A bandana is largely equivalent to doing nothing at all. What you quoted is a four-layer cotton mask of t-shirt-like material, in no way similar to a "bandana".

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:30PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 13 2020, @08:30PM (#1007541)

          Ok kids today we will br doing some hands on science! You'll be running your own experiments to gather data about the effectiveness of wearing face masks.

          First wearing no madk at all breathe outward normally through your mouth five times and theougg your nose five times. Hold your hand in front of your nose or mouth and see how far away you can feel your breath.

          Next tie a bandana around your head to make a mask covering your nose and mouth. Repeat the 5 bresths for nose and mouth and see how far away you can feel your bresth.

          Bonus points for repeating the steps with more forceful breathing and sneezing or coughing.

          If the bandana reduces how far you can feel your breath then it will be effective in limiting the infectious area around someone with air born virus or bacteria. You could still pass your infection so maintaining distance and no physical contact is still recommended when interacting with others.

          • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday June 15 2020, @09:47PM

            by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday June 15 2020, @09:47PM (#1008354) Journal

            Now let's "real world" that experiement and use COVID.

            COVID is not an airborne virus. The size of COVID particles are somewhere around 10-12 microns and nominally require attaching to exhaled droplets. Viruses that can float on air (airborne) are about 5 microns in size. It is suspected, although not confirmed, that forceful coughs and procedures which can disturb large amounts of phlegm and greater respiratory rates can cause these particles to become temporarily airborne.

            For your experiment, this means it doesn't matter at all how far you can "feel breath." It matters both how far your droplets extend and the individual patterns of the virus. The end results would probably be the same. A person infected wearing a mask will stop those 10 micron particles from escaping. A person wearing a mask may be prevented from receiving any stray droplets or aerosolized particles (although an N-95 is then recommended is the person is, for example, coughing).

            What wouldn't be the same is the response of truly airborne viruses like active Tuberculosis and Measles. While a surgical mask may help limit their spread somewhat the mask is porous enough to allow the particles to float through to the outside, and they are light enough to then float on any air currents in the rooms. Hence any persons in the same room (or connected by airflow) need to wear a better mask (N-95) that will filter the inspiration of those particles. And it's best if the person is in a negative-airflow room where the particles won't exit through a doorway.

            The difference would be when your student thinks that maintaining social distance and a bandanna will prevent them from getting their friend's Measles or Tb and are in error.

            --
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  • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:17AM

    by Reziac (2489) on Sunday June 14 2020, @03:17AM (#1007644) Homepage

    Yes. A paper on the subject:
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0843-2 [nature.com]

    and condensed for the layman, with a Handy Chart:
    https://www.wormsandgermsblog.com/2020/04/articles/miscellaneous/routine-mask-use-in-vet-clinics/ [wormsandgermsblog.com]

    --
    And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.