![]() Nose bridges, which can help the top of a mask to fit more snugly, offer a protective boost as well.Īchieving superb fit and filtration “is really simple,” Dr. Other tweaks can enhance a mask’s fit, such as ties that secure the fabric around the back of the head, instead of relying on ear loops that allow masks to hang and gape. An alternative is to wear a cloth mask with a pocket that can be stuffed with filter material, like the kind found in vacuum bags.īut wearing more than two masks, or layering up on masks that are already very good at filtering, will quickly bring diminishing returns and make it much harder to breathe normally. Marr recommended wearing face-hugging cloth masks over surgical masks, which tend to be made with more filter-friendly materials but fit more loosely. Layering two less specialized masks on top of each other can provide comparable protection. Instead, the fibers that comprise masks create a haphazard obstacle course through which air - and any infectious cargo - must navigate. The point is not to make a mask airtight, Dr. Masks that cloak the nose and mouth inhibit that invasion. The science, she said, is fairly intuitive: Respiratory viruses like the coronavirus, which move between people in blobs of spittle and spray, need a clear conduit to enter the airway, which is crowded with the types of cells the viruses infect. Marr is now pinning down the basis of these links on a microscopic scale. N.Y.C.’s Mandate: New York City will end its aggressive but contentious vaccine mandate for municipal workers, Mayor Eric Adams announced, signaling a key moment in the city’s long battle against the pandemic.But they are increasingly left to protect themselves as the rest of the country abandons precautions. Dangers Remain for Seniors: For older Americans, the Covid pandemic still poses significant threats.New Drug’s Long Odds: A promising new treatment quashes all Covid variants, but regulatory hurdles and a lack of funding make it unlikely to reach the United States market anytime soon.spy agencies remain divided over Covid’s origins. Lab Leak: New intelligence has prompted the Energy Department to conclude that an accidental laboratory leak in China most likely caused the pandemic, though U.S.And a study in Beijing found that face masks were 79 percent effective at blocking transmission from infected people to their close contacts. Another, which followed coronavirus infections among health care workers in Boston, noted a drastic drop in the number of positive test results after masks became a universal fixture among staff. One study, which tracked state policies mandating face coverings in public, found that known Covid cases waxed and waned in near-lockstep with mask-wearing rules. A bevy of observational studies have suggested that widespread mask-wearing can curb infections and deaths on an impressive scale, in settings as small as hair salons and at the level of entire countries. The arguments for masking span several fields of science, including epidemiology and physics. ![]() ![]() But for now, they will need to stay on, delivering protection both to mask-wearers and to the people around them. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco, and an author on the new commentary. “Americans will not need to be wearing masks forever,” said Dr. Through all that change, researchers have held the line on masks. New variants of the virus have emerged, carrying genetic changes that appear to enhance their ability to spread from person to person.Īnd while several vaccines have now cleared regulatory hurdles, the rollout of injections has been sputtering and slow - and there is not yet definitive evidence to show that shots will have a substantial impact on how fast, and from whom, the virus will spread. More than 90 million confirmed coronavirus infections have been documented worldwide, leaving millions dead and countless others with lingering symptoms, amid ongoing economic hardships and shuttered schools and businesses. But there is plenty of breathing room before mask-wearing approaches that extreme.Ī year into the Covid-19 pandemic, the world looks very different. Of course, there’s a trade-off: At some point, “we run the risk of making it too hard to breathe,” she said. But for people with thin or flimsy face coverings, “if you combine multiple layers, you start achieving pretty high efficiencies” of blocking viruses from exiting and entering the airway, said Linsey Marr, an expert in virus transmission at Virginia Tech and an author on a recent commentary laying out the science behind m ask-wearing. ![]() As cases of the coronavirus continue to surge on a global scale, some of the nation’s most prominent people have begun to double up on masks - a move that researchers say is increasingly being backed up by data.ĭouble-masking isn’t necessary for everyone. ![]()
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