Landmark Study Establishes that Cloth Masks are Very Effective, High ROI

A new comprehensive study was published Friday that unequivocally shows that cloth mask wearing in pubic is super effective. It’s undoubtedly the highest return on investment intervention available right now.

Researchers examined the transmission pathways by analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in Wuhan, Italy, and NYC from January 23 to May 9. They found that airborne transmission is the dominant way that the virus is spread (as opposed to surfaces etc.).

The authors examined the difference in spread with and without mandated cloth face covering and found that masks “significantly reduces the number of infections”. Mask wearing alone 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. 

When mask-wearing went into effect in New York, the daily new infection rate fell by about 3% per day. Infection trends shifted dramatically when mask-wearing rules were implemented on April 6 in northern Italy and April 17 in NYC.

The study concludes that “… wearing of face masks in public corresponds to the most effective means to prevent inter-human transmission, and this inexpensive practice, in conjunction with simultaneous social distancing, quarantine, and contact tracing, represents the most likely fighting opportunity to stop the COVID-19 pandemic“.

Editorial Note: Ok… so lets think about this for a second. Here we have a very effective intervention that’s proven and is the single most efficient way to slow the spread of the virus. The intervention costs essentially nothing. Compare that to the cost of another stay at home order or the interventions like expanding hospital capacity and canceling elective procedures.

This is the easiest call in the world. We should have a statewide requirement requiring everybody to wear a mask in indoor environments when they’re in public.

Source: 

Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences

Renyi Zhang, View ORCID ProfileYixin Li, Annie L. Zhang, View ORCID ProfileYuan Wang, and Mario J. Molina

PNAS first published June 11, 2020 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009637117