Masks Can Delay Coronavirus

Masks can delay coronavirus

Medical masks can effectively trap coronaviruses and flu viruses. Scientists have not been able to detect viruses in the air that sick people exhale through masks, a new study published in Nature Medicine showed.

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Airborne infectious agents enter the environment with droplets, including when sneezing and coughing. These droplets can "deliver" viruses to various surfaces. Also, pathogens are spread with an aerosol that is breathed out by the infected.

Face masks are often recommended to prevent the spread of influenza, but little is known about their effectiveness in coronavirus infections.

The coronaviruses that were studied in this scientific work are the causative agents of seasonal SARS that do not pose a significant threat to life. But they are close relatives of the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19.

The new study involved 246 people who doctors suspected of having respiratory viral infections. Participants in the study breathed into a special machine, through and without a medical mask, so that scientists could compare the release of viruses in each case.

The researchers focused on 111 patients with laboratory-confirmed seasonal coronavirus infection, influenza, and rhinovirus infection. It turned out that medical masks can trap coronaviruses and flu viruses, but rhinoviruses pass through them.

In the experiment, scientists found coronaviruses in 40% of samples of aerosol exhaled by patients and in 30% of samples of larger droplets. When patients put on masks, the virus was no longer detected in the exhaled air.

"This information could have important implications for the control of COVID-19, as it indicates that medical masks can be used to slow the spread of infection," the authors write in the text.

But in order to reliably judge the effectiveness of masks in COVID-19, it is necessary to conduct studies with the participation of those infected with the new coronavirus.