Despite the end of lockdown, we must continue to remain vigilant with regards to health and safety guidelines
While we have known for some time that simple surgical masks go a long way towards reducing the spread of Covid-19, a recent randomized study carried out specifically in Bangladesh has led researchers to conclude the same: Surgical masks continue to be an effective tool in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The study, conducted by researchers at Yale, Stanford, and the University of California, among others, was able to clearly showcase how effective masks are in preventing the transmission of coronavirus, with this being especially true for surgical masks.
In fact, the research conducted is perhaps the first of its kind to test masks out in real-world settings, and was carried out across 600 villages and involved more than 340,000 people, a substantial dataset to say the least, and goes several steps further in proving the efficacy of masks compared to previous research, which had mostly been conducted within controlled environments such as hospitals and laboratories.
This means that, despite the end of lockdown, we must continue to remain vigilant with regards to health and safety guidelines which prevent the spread of the virus, especially when it comes to the wearing of masks in public places, in order to ensure that we do not see further waves of Covid.
The pandemic has caused too much devastation, and the data in this most recent research could not be clearer -- a mere 30% increase in mask-wearing was shown to be good enough to reduce the risk of Covid by 10% -- and, as such, we as responsible citizens in conjunction with health authorities must put the lives of others and that of the nation first, and proceed accordingly.
We all need to wear masks in public -- that is the simplest way we can fight the good fight against this deadly pandemic.
Leave a Comment