New York: Widespread wearing of surgical masks may limit the spread of the coronavirus in communities more than masks made of cloth, finds a large study.
Researchers from Yale University, US, tracked more than 340,000 adults in 600 villages in rural Bangladesh. The findings, published as a preprint, showed that wearing a mask could have a significant impact in limiting the spread of symptomatic COVID-19, reports the Washington Post.
“I think this should basically put an end to any scientific debate about whether masks can be effective in combating COVID at the population level,” said Jason Abalak, an economist at Yale.
Ablak called the study “a nail in the coffin” of the arguments against masks.
Those wearing masks saw a 9.3 percent reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 seroprevalence, meaning the virus was confirmed by blood transfusions, as well as a further 11.9 percent reduction in COVID-19 symptoms.
However, the team emphasized that this does not mean that the masks were only 9.3 percent effective.
“I think it would be a huge error to read this study and say, ‘Oh, the mask can only prevent 10 percent of symptomatic infections’,” Ablak said. If masking were universal, this number would have been many times higher, he said.
The study is under peer review with the journal Science, the Post reported.
Furthermore, the researchers found that while cloth masks markedly reduce symptoms, they “cannot disprove” the idea that they may have only a small effect on symptomatic coronavirus infections, unlike surgical masks, and Possibly not at all.
However, Abalak stressed that the research did not provide evidence that cloth masks are ineffective.
The results “do not necessarily show that surgical masks are much better than cloth masks, but we do find more clear evidence of effectiveness in surgical masks”, he said.
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