Study: Widespread Mask-Wearing Could Prevent COVID-19 Second Waves

LONDON (Reuters) -
A man wears a face mask as a preventative measure against the spread of the coronavirus, in Yerushalayim. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Population-wide face-mask use could push COVID-19 transmission down to controllable levels for national epidemics and could prevent further waves of the pandemic disease when combined with lockdowns, according to a U.K. study published Wednesday.

The research, led by scientists at the Britain’s Cambridge and Greenwich Universities, suggests lockdowns alone will not stop the resurgence of the coronavirus, but that even homemade masks can dramatically reduce transmission rates if enough people wear them in public.

“Our analyses support the immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public,” said Richard Stutt, who co-led the study at Cambridge.

He said the findings showed that if widespread mask use were combined with social distancing and some lockdown measures, this could be “an acceptable way of managing the pandemic and reopening economic activity” long before the development and public availability of an effective vaccine against COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

The study’s findings were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, a scientific journal.





In all scenarios the study looked at, routine face-mask use by 50% or more of the population reduced COVID-19 spread to an R of less than 1.0, flattening future disease waves and allowing for less stringent lockdowns.
