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Requiring Masks Early In the Covid-19 Pandemic Would Have Prevented Many Deaths – ScienceDirect

Our main counterfactual experiments suggest that nationally mandating face masks for employees early in the pandemic could have reduced the weekly growth rate of cases and deaths by more than 10 percentage points in late April and could have led to as much as 19 to 47 percent less deaths nationally by the end of May, which roughly translates into 19 to 47 thousand saved lives. We also find that, without stay-at-home orders, cases would have been larger by 6 to 63 percent and without business closures, cases would have been larger by 17 to 78 percent.

Source: Causal impact of masks, policies, behavior on early covid-19 pandemic in the U.S. – ScienceDirect

The Most Popular Mask May Also Be the Least Effective, Study Finds

The 3 layer mask including a layer of surgical mask fabric and masks modified with breathable panty shield were sadly not included in the study, but it’s worth a read.

With thousands of brands, styles, materials, and modifications to select from, it’s hard to know which particular masks do the best job of preventing droplets from spreading. That’s exactly why a group of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill decided to put a range of masks to the test. For a study published by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine in December, they set out to find the most and least effective masks, and found that one of the most popular and prevalent styles is ranked at the bottom of the list for efficacy. Read on to find out how your mask ranks…

Source: The Most Popular Mask May Also Be the Least Effective, Study Finds

Reserving coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines for global access: cross sectional analysis | The BMJ

This study provides an overview of how high income countries have secured future supplies of covid-19 vaccines but that access for the rest of the world is uncertain. Governments and manufacturers might provide much needed assurances for equitable allocation of covid-19 vaccines through greater transparency and accountability over these arrangements.

Source: Reserving coronavirus disease 2019 vaccines for global access: cross sectional analysis | The BMJ