Insightful: Japan doesn’t even require people to wear masks. Yet people do it anyway because people respect each other and put protecting public safety as paramount. As result, here is Japan versus the US and even Europe. If you can barely see Japan, it’s at the bottom.
The biggest step our governments could take to crush covid-19 is to make masks compulsory in public places.
Research shows wearing masks can significantly reduce risk of coronavirus transmission.
A study published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found that requiring people to wear masks in epicenters of new coronavirus cases may have prevented tens of thousands of infections from the virus.
For the study, researchers examined how the new coronavirus is transmitted by reviewing infection trends in Wuhan, China; Italy; and New York City—all of which were early epicenters of the virus' transmission. The researchers also observed the precautions implicated to curb the virus' spread in those epicenters and compared the rates of coronavirus infection in Italy and New York City before and after rules regarding face masks and covering were put in place.
The researchers found that "airborne transmission" appears to be "the dominant route for infection" from the new coronavirus, according to the study. In addition, they found that coronavirus infection trends changed once governments enforced mask-wearing rules in Italy in April 6 and in New York City on April 17.
In New York, for instance, the daily new infection rate dropped by 3% per day after a policy requiring that people wear face masks or coverings in public took effect, the researchers found. Overall, the researchers estimated that requirements related to face masks and coverings "significantly reduced the number of infections … by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9."
Further, the researchers concluded that "[f]ace covering prevents both airborne transmission by blocking atomization and inhalation of virus-bearing aerosols and contact transmission by blocking viral shedding of droplets." Based on their findings, they wrote that CDC and the World Health Organization should enforce stricter policies on wearing face masks or coverings to further curb the novel coronavirus' spread. "The current mitigation measures, such as social distancing, quarantine, and isolation implemented in the United States, are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public," the researchers wrote.
Separately, Richard Stutt, a researcher at the University of Cambridge, on Wednesday published a model in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A that showed widespread use of face masks and coverings can help to reduce the new coronavirus' spread—even if the masks or coverings don't provide complete protection against droplets that may contain the pathogen. Stutt said wearing face masks or coverings can help to significantly curb the coronavirus' transmission when paired with lockdown orders.
"You can do lockdown, you can do masks, but you get the best result when you combine them," Stutt said.
In addition, a review of 172 observational studies published earlier this month in The Lancet also concluded that wearing face masks or coverings can help curb the risk of coronavirus infection and transmission, the Post reports. Holger Schünemann, a co-author of the review and an epidemiologist and physician at McMaster University, said the review indicated that, "[i]n multiple ways … the use of masks is highly protective in health care and community settings."
[From Advisory]
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