- Researchers from Duke University conducted a study to test the effectiveness of face masks.
- The study tested surgical masks in addition to cotton masks, neck fleece, and bandanas, which are often used as homemade alternatives.
- While some of the homemade alternative masks offered the same level of protection as surgical masks, neck fleece and bandanas did not provide much protection.
- In fact, the neck fleece made more respiratory drops than wearing any mask at all, which can be counterproductive for protection.
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New research written by a group of scientists at Duke University compared 14 different types of masks to see which of them would be most effective in reducing the spread of coronavirus.
One of them, she found, effectively made things worse.
The researchers tested how effective each mask was at reducing the number of respiratory drops transmitted during speech. Viral particles can be carried by these droplets, spreading the virus.
They tested 14 different types of masks, including surgical, N95, cotton and polypropylene masks, as well as neck braces and bandanas to incorporate a combination of alternative homemade masks and traditionally used as protective equipment. The study tested a person who speaks 10 times while wearing each of these masks and wearing a “counter test” of no masks, respectively.
Compared to the “control test” of not wearing masks, most of the options reduced the number of respiratory drops passed, and adding to the body of research that masks show are important in limiting the spread of coronavirus. The story turned out that polypropylene masks marked a drop count that was close to the numbers counted for surgical and N95 masks that had the lowest number of drops.
However, the neck fleece and bandanas marked high counts of respiratory drops, which show that this alternative face covering does not offer much protection, according to the study.
In fact neck fleece tanommen the number of respiratory drops by making a number of smaller drops – resulting in more drops than not wearing any masks at all.
The study stated that because smaller drops stay in the air longer than larger drops, neck fleece can actually be “counterproductive”.
“We were very surprised to find that the number of particles measured with the fleece actually exceeded the number of parts measured without wearing a mask,” Martin Fischer, one of the study’s authors, told CNN. “We want to emphasize that we really encourage people to wear masks, but we want them to wear masks that actually work.”
