An upper bound on one-to-one exposure to infectious human respiratory particles (7 December 2021)

Summary

Wearing face masks and maintaining social distance are familiar to many people around the world during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Evidence suggests that these are effective ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. However, it is not clear how exactly the risk of infection is affected by wearing a mask during close personal encounters or by social distancing without a mask. Results from a study by Bagheri et al. show that face masks significantly reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection compared to social distancing. We find a very low risk of infection when everyone wears a face mask, even if it doesn’t fit perfectly on the face.