A study involving more than 340,000 people in Bangladesh across 600 villages offers some of the strongest real-world evidence yet that mask use can help communities slow the spread of Covid-19.
The study's findings have important implications for countries that are relying on mitigation measures to slow the virus's spread until vaccines are more readily available. But there are also applicable lessons for nations like the United States, where some communities are reimposing"The policy question we were trying to answer was: If you can distribute masks and get people to wear them, do they work?" said study co-author Mushfiq Mobarak, a professor of economics at Yale.
"A 30-percent increase in mask-wearing led to a 10 percent drop in Covid, so imagine if there was a 100-percent increase — if everybody wore a mask and we saw a 100-percent change," he said. "Right now, places say to cover your face but they don't say what type of face covering," she said."If schools and workplaces and other indoor public spaces are going to mandate masks, they should be working to mandate surgical masks."
"Normative behavior is what needs to be targeted," Sethi said."It’s not just mask use that needs to be adopted, it’s also an understanding of why masks need to be used and reinforcement that the virus is serious."
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