ith many states reopening more fully, including the return of kids to school in some areas, wearing face masks is becoming more and more important to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, researchers at Duke University have determined through a simple study that some face masks are much more effective than others at reducing the spread of the coronavirus, and what’s worse, some masks are essentially useless.
The idea for the study came about when a professor at Duke University’s School of Medicine was asked by the community which masks would be best to buy in bulk, and the professor wanted to recommend the most effective masks. The results of the study were published on Friday.
The study tested 14 different face masks that are available to people, including the N95 mask used mostly by health care professionals. Each mask was tested 10 times and each time the test began with the person speaking without a mask for comparison. Here are all the different masks used:
