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Latest Prevention & Wellness News<\/h3>\n
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WEDNESDAY, Aug. 26, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Here’s some reassuring news for those who wonder whether face masks really work: New research shows a face covering can block 99.9% of respiratory droplets when a person speaks or coughs<\/a>, significantly lowering the risk of coronavirus transmission.<\/p>\n Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom conducted tests with people and with a life-sized human model connected to a machine that simulates coughs<\/a> and speech.<\/p>\n “The simple message from our research is that face masks work. Wearing a face covering will reduce the probability that someone unknowingly infected with the virus will pass it on,” said study co-author Paul Digard, a professor at the university’s Roslin Institute.<\/p>\n To come to that conclusion, the team compared the number of droplets that landed on a surface in front of a person coughing<\/a> and speaking without and with a surgical mask or a basic cotton face covering.<\/p>\n The tests showed that a person standing 2 meters (6.5 feet<\/a>) from a coughing<\/a> person without a mask is exposed to 10,000 times more droplets than someone half a meter (1.6 feet<\/a>) from a coughing person who is wearing one.<\/p>\n Even a single-layer cotton mask reduced the number of droplets by more than 1,000 times, according to the study published Aug. 17 on the preprint server medRxiv<\/i>. Such research hasn’t been peer-reviewed.<\/p>\n The findings could have implications for social distancing measures, according to the research team led by Ignazio Maria Viola.<\/p>\n “We knew face masks of various materials are effective to a different extent in filtering small droplets,” said Viola, of the university’s School of Engineering.<\/p>\n “However, when we looked specifically at those larger droplets that are thought to be the most dangerous, we discovered that even the simplest handmade single-layer cotton mask is tremendously effective,” Viola said in a university news release. “Therefore, wearing a face mask can really make a difference.”<\/p>\n — Robert Preidt<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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