When it Comes to Homemade Masks, the Number of Layers Matters, Study Says

With medical grade masks still in short supply and badly needed at hospitals and other care centers, many Americans have turned to a variety of other options to help slow the spread of COVID-19, from hand-sewn facial coverings to bandanas and everything in between. But it turns out that when it comes to preventing viral transmission, not all masks are created equal, according to a new study. In the study, published Thursday in the journal Thorax, researchers pitted three kinds of facial coverings against one another: a single-layer “no sew” mask, a two-layer variety made to specifications from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a three-layer surgical mask. Using LED lights, a high-speed camera and a healthy volunteer willing to have their nose repeatedly ticked with a tissue, each variety of facial covering was tested to see which best contained droplets generated from speaking, coughing and sneezing, with the idea that better containment suggests better efficacy in terms of curbing transmission. “The COVID-19 pandemic and the need for community face masks has raised questions about whether you can just throw a scarf over your face, or whether you should use a better designed cloth mask,” says Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global biosecurity at the University of New South Wales Sydney, and one of the study’s authors. The result? The surgical mask did the best job overall, but the two-layer CDC mask was still “...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 UnitedWeRise20Disaster Source Type: news