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The authors of a study based on an enormous randomized research project in Bangladesh say their results offer the best evidence yet that widespread wearing of surgical masks can limit the spread of the coronavirus in communities.
The preprint paper, which tracked more than 340,000 adults across 600 villages in rural Bangladesh, is by far the largest randomized study on the effectiveness of masks at limiting the spread of coronavirus infections.
Its authors say this provides conclusive, real-world evidence for what laboratory work and other research already strongly suggest: mask-wearing can have a significant impact on limiting the spread of symptomatic covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.
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The researchers estimate that among a group of Bangladeshi adults in the study that were encouraged to wear masks, mask-wearing increased by 28.8 percent after the intervention. When tracked, this group saw a 9.3 percent reduction in symptomatic covid-19 seroprevalence, meaning the virus was confirmed by bloodwork, as well as a further 11.9 percent reduction in covid-19 symptoms.
The study’s authors — led by principal investigators Abaluck, Laura Kwong, Steve Luby, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak and Ashley Styczynski — a globe-spanning team that includes researchers from Yale, Stanford and the Bangladeshi nonprofit GreenVoice, emphasized that this did not mean masks were only 9.3 percent effective.
“I think a big error would be to read this study and to say, ‘Oh, masks can only prevent 10 percent of symptomatic infections,’ ” Abaluck said. The number would probably be several times higher if masking were universal, he said.
The team chose Bangladesh because co-author and Yale economist Mobarak was from the country and had worked there before, and because of increased options for funding.
The sheer scale of the project, which began in November and concluded in April 2021, is notable. About 178,000 Bangladeshi villagers were in an intervention group and encouraged to use masks. An additional 163,000 were in a control group, where no interventions were made.
The project assessed the levels of mask-wearing and physical distancing through direct observations from plain-clothed staff in the community at mosques, markets and other gathering places.
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This study contains a trio of key observations, Ranney said: One, it offers even more evidence that masks work to shield the wearer and the community. Because the research team was only able to document cases in which people were symptomatic and were seropositive for the virus, Ranney agreed that results may be an underestimate.
“To me this is the minimum effect of mask-wearing in a community,” she said. “I would expect the real effect of masks is much higher, given the limitations of how they were able to measure covid in this study.”
Two, it indicates that better-quality masks offer superior protection. And three, the study shows how to motivate people in a community to wear masks, by making masks a social norm.
Gostin said the research also pushed back on the “pernicious” idea that masks were only for individual protection. “[Masking is] a population-based blanket that we have to get widespread adoption of,” he said
Not copy/pasting the entire article 'cuz that's infringement. You can always sign up for your free trial at the WaPo even though it's run by a bunch of libtards.