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Masks Protect the Wearer, Not Just Others, CDC Says

Steve Baragona

   There are more reasons than ever to wear a mask, according to the U.S.
   Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

   Masks provide some coronavirus protection to the wearer, not just to
   others, the CDC says in an [1]updated science brief.

   Until recently, CDC has said the purpose of wearing a mask is to lower
   the amount of virus particles coming from the person wearing the mask.

   But a torrent of research conducted since the pandemic began has shown
   that masks offer a degree of protection from the virus to the person
   wearing the mask, too.

   "I think there's always been some appreciation that there was personal
   protection from the mask itself, but there was no way to quantify
   that," said Carle Illinois School of Medicine associate professor
   William Scott. "There was no real research to know for sure if that was
   truly happening."

   Since April, when CDC first recommended people wear cloth face
   coverings, many groups of researchers have raced to find out how well
   they work.

   Pretty well, it turned out. Research first focused on particles coming
   from the wearer. Masks with layers of fabric could reduce them by 50%
   to 70% in[2] some studies.

   More recently, when scientists started looking at whether they helped
   the person wearing the mask, "our data was kind of surprising, to find
   out that there was some protection," Scott said. Some studies found
   cloth masks could filter out half of the very fine particles that carry
   the virus.

   But it is hard to put a firm number on how well masks work, experts
   caution, because materials vary widely and researchers have studied the
   question in different ways.

References

   1. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html
   2. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/masking-science-sars-cov2.html

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