Papers about effectiveness of basic masks #masks4all

Curated by Jeremy Howard and the fast.ai community. Summaries by Reshama Shaikh. Additional help from Frederik Questier. The papers below have been used to create a video, and a newspaper article, summarizing the utility of basic masks. In summary: everyone should wear masks, which they should make themselves using t-shirts and/or paper towels, whenever they go out in public. I’ve also made a little summary on Twitter of the video, and a summary of the article.

We ended up, somewhat accidentally, finding that we’d created a campaign after we made this literature summary! So now you’ll find lots of information about masks, including how to make your own, at Masks4All.co.

Paper Summaries

* A review of masks

* Face Masks: Much More Than You Wanted To Know

* Collection of Mask Research

* List of citations

* Can physical interventions help reduce the spread of respiratory viruses? - Burch, Jane - 2020

* COVID-19: Why we should all wear masks — There is new scientific rationale

* Curve Crushers: Killing Coronavirus

* Masks for All: Sensible and Helpful

Publications

List of Publications

See next section for “summary of publications”

Disease characteristics

* Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1 (7)

* Influenza Virus Aerosols in Human Exhaled Breath: Particle Size, Culturability, and Effect of Surgical Masks (6)

* Flight of the aerosol (15)

* SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Uppe r Respiratory Specimens of Infected Patients (31)

* Understanding of COVID‐19 based on current evidence (30)

* Do N95 Respirators Provide 95% Protection Level Against Airborne Viruses, and How Adequate Are Surgical Masks?

* Performance of an N95 Filtering Facepiece Particulate Respirator and a Surgical Mask During Human Breathing: Two Pathways for Particle Penetration

* Editor's Choice: Transocular Entry of Seasonal Influenza–Attenuated Virus Aerosols and the Efficacy of N95 Respirators, Surgical Masks, and Eye Protection in Humans

* Turbulent Gas Clouds and Respiratory Pathogen Emissions: Potential Implications for Reducing Transmission of COVID-19 | Infectious Diseases | JAMA

* Evolving epidemiology and transmission dynamics of coronavirus disease 2019 outside Hubei province, China: a descriptive and modelling study

* Closed environments facilitate secondary transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

* COVID-19 Outbreak Associated with Air Conditioning in Restaurant, Guangzhou, China, 2020

* Presymptomatic Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 — Singapore, January 23 ...

* Virological assessment of hospitalized patients with COVID-2019 (Nature)

* Could SARS-CoV-2 be transmitted via speech droplets? (Anfinrud/Bax; medRxiv 2020)

Epidemiology and impact assessment

* Modeling the Effectiveness of Respiratory Protective Devices in Reducing Influenza Outbreak (2)

* Final Country-wide Mortality from the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and Notes Regarding Mask Usage by the Public

* The Case for Universal Cloth Mask Adoption and Policies to Increase Supply of Medical Masks for Health Workers

Efficacy

* The bacterial and viral filtration performance of breathing system filters (16)

* Effectiveness of N95 respirators versus surgical masks against influenza: A systematic review and meta-analysis (12)

* Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections among the General Population (3)

* Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks: Would They Protect in an Influenza Pandemic? | Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness (5)

* Effectiveness of Masks and Respirators Against Respiratory Infections in Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (10)

* What is the efficacy of standard face masks compared to respirator masks in preventing COVID-type respiratory illnesses in primary care staff? (24)

* A quantitative assessment of the efficacy of surgical and N95 masks to filter influenza virus in patients with acute influenza infection (25)

* A cluster randomised trial of cloth masks compared with medical masks in healthcare workers (18)

* How effective are face masks in operation theatre? A time frame analysis and recommendations (19)

* N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel (20)

* Association between 2019-nCoV transmission and N95 respirator use (27)

* Protection by Face Masks against Influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 Virus on Trans-Pacific Passenger Aircraft, 2009 (32)

* Performance of N95 Respirators: Filtration Efficiency for Airborne Microbial and Inert Particles

* Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks

* Can physical interventions help reduce the spread of respiratory viruses? (1)

Impact on transmission

* The role of facemasks and hand hygiene in the prevention of influenza transmission in households: results from a cluster randomised trial; Berlin, Germany, 2009-2011 (21)

* Facemasks and hand hygiene to prevent influenza transmission in households: a cluster randomized trial. (22)

* Mask use, hand hygiene, and seasonal influenza-like illness among young adults: a randomized intervention trial.(23)

* Facemasks, Hand Hygiene, and Influenza among Young Adults: A Randomized Intervention Trial (33)

* SARS Transmission, Risk Factors, and Prevention in Hong Kong (34)

* Impact of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions on URIs and Influenza in Crowded, Urban Households

* The First Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial of Mask Use in Households to Prevent Respiratory Virus Transmission

* A familial cluster of pneumonia associated with the 2019 novel coronavirus indicating person-to-person transmission: a study of a family cluster

* COMMENTARY: Masks-for-all for COVID-19 not based on sound data

Policy and guidelines

* Addressing COVID-19 Face Mask Shortages: evaluating decontamination methods for N95 mask reuse. (8)

* Rational use of face masks in the COVID-19 pandemic (9)

* Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses (11)

* Simple Respiratory Mask (13)

* What Hospitals Should Do to Prepare for an Influenza Pandemic (14)

* Sterilization of disposable face masks by means of dry and steam sterilization processes (17)

* Letter to editor: Role of masks/respirator protection against 2019-novel coronavirus (COVID-19) (26)

* Mass masking in the COVID-19 epidemic: people need guidance (28)

* Knowledge, attitudes, and practices towards COVID-19 among Chinese residents during the rapid rise period of the COVID-19 outbreak: a quick online cross-sectional survey (29)

* N95 Respirators and Surgical Masks

* Reuse Mask? DIY Mask? | Consumer Council

Summary of Publications

Lead Author / Year /

Country

Title

Study

Notes

Burch /

2020 /

(NA)

Can physical interventions help reduce the spread of respiratory viruses

Meta-analysis

“moderate‐certainty evidence shows that use of handwashing plus masks probably reduces the spread of respiratory viruses”

Yan /

2018

Modeling the Effectiveness of Respiratory Protective Devices in Reducing Influenza Outbreak

Link 2 (2019)

n=1000

-- a 50% compliance in donning the device resulted in a significant (at least 50% prevalence and 20% cumulative incidence) reduction in risk for fitted and unfitted N95 respirators, high‐filtration surgical masks, and both low‐filtration and high‐filtration pediatric masks.

--An 80% compliance rate essentially eliminated the influenza outbreak.

--Outward protection (mask wearing by a mechanical head) was less effective than inward protection (mask wearing by healthy volunteers)

Van der Sande / 2008 /

Netherlands

Professional and Home-Made Face Masks Reduce Exposure to Respiratory Infections among the General Population

Experiment 1, n=28 adults + 11 children

Experiment 2, n=22 adults

Experiment 3, n= artificial test head

--

Mask: FF2, N95, homemade (tea cloth)

“overall these experiments show that significant protection against influenza transmission upon exposure can be conveyed also for lay people, including children, in spite of imperfect fit and imperfect adherence.”

“In our experiments, the main determinant of the magnitude of protection factors measured by masks was the type of mask”

“any type of general face mask usage can still decrease viral transmission”

“All types of masks provided a much higher degree of exposure protection against inward transmission of particles, then in preventing outward transmission by a mechanical head as a proxy for an infected patient exposing the environment.”

Chen /

2020 /

China

Coronavirus can travel twice as far as official ‘safe distance’ and stay in air for 30 minutes, Chinese study finds

none of those passengers in the two buses who wore face masks were infected.

Davies /

2013 /

UK

Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks: Would They Protect in an Influenza Pandemic?

n=21

-- (p=.002)

-- (p=.007)

--Masks:

-- surgical

-- homemade (cotton tshirts)

-- no mask

--surgical mask was 3 times more effective in blocking transmission than the homemade mask

--homemade mask should only be considered as a last resort to prevent droplet transmission from infected individuals, but it would be better than no protection.

Milton /

2013 /

(CDC / FAA)

Influenza Virus Aerosols in Human Exhaled Breath: Particle Size, Culturability, and Effect of Surgical Masks

n=89 adults

p = 0.003

--

Masks:

-- surgical

-- no mask

--11% vs 43% efficacy of masks (no mask vs mask)

van Doremalen /

2020

Aerosol and Surface Stability of SARS-CoV-2 as Compared with SARS-CoV-1

“aerosol and fomite transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is plausible, since the virus can remain viable and infectious in aerosols for hours and on surfaces up to days”

Price /

2020

Addressing COVID-19 Face Mask Shortages

--DO NOT