Texas A&M Study: Face Masks Critical In Preventing Spread Of COVID-19 - Texas A&M Today Not wearing face-covering dramatically increases the risk of catching Covid-19, according to research led by a Texas A&M University professor. This has special significance as countries emerge from the drastic lock-downs imposed in the early stages of the pandemic, if a more serious second peak is to be avoided.
The team, which included Nobel Laureate Professor Mario Molina of University of California San Diego, found that face covering reduced the number of infections by 78,000 in Italy and by 66,000 in New York, according to a paper by Renyi Zhang, Texas A&M Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and the Harold J. Haynes Chair in the College of Geosciences, and colleagues from the University of Texas, the University of California-San Diego and the California Institute of Technology.
In UK, where the government has been hesitant to even recommend, let alone mandate, the wearing of face-coverings until very recently, deaths from Covid-19 are the highest in Europe and third only to the USA and Brazil.
The reason face-coverings are proving effective in reducing the rate of infection is because the dominant route of spread is airborne, via respiratory aerosols. These aerosols are produced not only by the obvious coughs and sneezing but also during normal speech and breathing.
Our results clearly show that airborne transmission via respiratory aerosols represents the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19. By analyzing the pandemic trends without face-covering using the statistical method and by projecting the trend, we calculated that over 66,000 infections were prevented by using a face mask in little over a month in New York City. We conclude that wearing a face mask in public corresponds to the most effective means to prevent inter-human transmission.
This inexpensive practice, in conjunction with social distancing and other procedures, is the most likely opportunity to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Our work also highlights that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics.
Renyi Zhang Lead author.
Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences
Texas A&M University
(Quoted in Texas A&M Today)
The team's advice is unequivocal:
Our study establishes very clearly that using a face mask is not only useful to prevent infected coughing droplets from reaching uninfected persons, but is also crucial for these uninfected persons to avoid breathing the minute atmospheric particles (aerosols) that infected people emit when talking and that can remain in the atmosphere tens of minutes and can travel tens of feet.
Professor Mario Molina, Co-author
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California San Diego
(Quoted in Texas A&M Today)
The team's findings were published a few days ago in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
Significance
We have elucidated the transmission pathways of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in the three epicenters. Our results show that the airborne transmission route is highly virulent and dominant for the spread of COVID-19. The mitigation measures are discernable from the trends of the pandemic. Our analysis reveals that the difference with and without mandated face covering represents the determinant in shaping the trends of the pandemic. This protective measure significantly reduces the number of infections. Other mitigation measures, such as social distancing implemented in the United States, are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public. Our work also highlights the necessity that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics.
Abstract
Various mitigation measures have been implemented to fight the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, including widely adopted social distancing and mandated face covering. However, assessing the effectiveness of those intervention practices hinges on the understanding of virus transmission, which remains uncertain. Here we show that airborne transmission is highly virulent and represents the dominant route to spread the disease. By analyzing the trend and mitigation measures in Wuhan, China, Italy, and New York City, from January 23 to May 9, 2020, we illustrate that the impacts of mitigation measures are discernable from the trends of the pandemic. Our analysis reveals that the difference with and without mandated face covering represents the determinant in shaping the pandemic trends in the three epicenters. This protective measure alone significantly reduced the number of infections, that is, by over 78,000 in Italy from April 6 to May 9 and over 66,000 in New York City from April 17 to May 9. Other mitigation measures, such as social distancing implemented in the United States, are insufficient by themselves in protecting the public. We conclude that wearing of face masks in public corresponds to the most effective means to prevent interhuman transmission, and this inexpensive practice, in conjunction with simultaneous social distancing, quarantine, and contact tracing, represents the most likely fighting opportunity to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. Our work also highlights the fact that sound science is essential in decision-making for the current and future public health pandemics.
Renyi Zhang, Yixin Li, Annie L. Zhang, Yuan Wang, Mario J. Molina.
Identifying airborne transmission as the dominant route for the spread of COVID-19.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2020; 202009637 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009637117
Copyright: © The authors
Published by PNAS Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
This finding should put an end to any equivocation regarding face-coverings which now need to be mandatory in public places and especially in shops and shopping malls. In the Czech Republic, where my son lives, face-covering has been mandatory on all public transport since the beginnings of the pandemic and most people wear them outdoors routinely. In addition to a nation-wide lockdown, this measure has resulted in just 257 Covid-19 deaths in the Czech Republic, compared to 2,719 in Sweden with a similar population.
There can now be no excuse for not wearing face-coverings in all public places, if we are to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. Tweet
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