What Does The Science Really Say About Wearing Of Masks?

“There’s no question among the medical community and major medical and public health organizations that mask wearing is one effective way of reducing the spread of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2,” said Lauren Wilson, pediatric hospitalist and vice president of the Montana Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

To explain how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted from person to person, epidemiologist and infectious disease ecologist Raina Plowright pictures a room full of smokers. After each drag on their cigarettes, they exhale clouds of smoke that drift and swirl in various directions, not unlike the fine liquid droplets people expel with every breath. In the case of someone infected with the coronavirus, viral particles ride along on those droplets. Some droplets are large enough that gravity draws them to the ground quickly, she said, but others are tiny enough to remain suspended in the air.

“When you see someone smoking, you see the smoke stays in the air for some period of time,” Plowright said. “This is one of the parts of the transmission of this virus that’s really being ignored, is that so much of it’s about the air we breathe.”
Plowright is an associate professor at Montana State University’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and has conducted extensive research on bat-borne viruses such as SARS-CoV-2. She said there is strong observational and experimental evidence suggesting that masks are “very effective” in reducing viral disease transmission. They do so, she added, in two ways: by containing many of the droplets expelled by the wearer, and by filtering out larger droplets expelled by others. According to a lab study published last fall in the journal Aerosol Science and Technology, a cloth mask blocked, on average, 51% of respiratory droplets generated by coughing. A neck gaiter blocked 47%, or as much as 60% when doubled over. An N95 respirator blocked 99%.
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