Our results indicate that surgical face masks “COULD” prevent transmission of human coronaviruses and influenza viruses from symptomatic individuals.
Conjecture, not science.
Symptomatic individuals should just stay home.
“Conjecture, not science.”
Here is the main finding from the study, leading to the inference that wearing a face mask is associated with reduced emissions of the virus through respiratory droplets or aerosols:
‘We detected coronavirus in respiratory droplets and aerosols in 3 of 10 (30%) and 4 of 10 (40%) of the samples collected without face masks, respectively, but did not detect any virus in respiratory droplets or aerosols collected from participants wearing face masks, this difference was significant in aerosols and showed a trend toward reduced detection in respiratory droplets (Table 1b).’
“Symptomatic individuals should just stay home.”
That’s good advice, but several studies have shown that asymptomatic infected individuals also can shed the virus and place others at risk of contracting the virus.