Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones in conversation at Queen’s Park, the day after Ontario’s chief medical officer of health ‘strongly recommended’ mask wearing.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
In 2020, with adult ICUs at risk of being overwhelmed, we wore masks and accepted restrictions. Now pediatric intensive care is at risk. Will leaders follow the evidence and tell us to mask up?
We tested well-fitting cloth masks made from 16 kinds of cotton, on human participants, to see how many provided filtration comparable with a certified medical mask. Most of them did.
Not all masks offer the same level of protection for you and those around you.
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The CDC’s updated mask guidelines say that cloth masks offer the least protection from COVID-19. Differences in the materials masks are made from and the ways they fit are the reason.
Since the coronavirus first began spreading around the globe, people have debated how effective masks are at preventing COVID-19. A year and a half in, what does the evidence show?
Layering face masks has been suggested as a way to increase protection against COVID-19 variants that may be more transmissible.
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Are two face masks better than one? Adding layers of filtration by double masking is a way of using the masks that we already have, possibly to better effect.
Although cloth masks have been widely adopted, many people still have questions about them.
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Epidemiologists reviewed 25 studies of cloth face masks. Here’s what they found out about how well they work, why they work, who they protect and why the mosquito and chain-link fence analogy is wrong.
Recommendations around mask usage are confusing. The science isn’t. Evidence shows that masks are extremely effective to slow the coronavirus and may be the best tool available right now to fight it.