Not one, but two. Or more. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has upped the mask-wearing game by declaring that double masking with cloth and surgical masks is what you need to protect against COVID-19.
The mask ensemble should include a tightly fitted surgical mask with a cloth mask over it. Citing “new” research that double masking can reduce virus transmission by up to 96.5% if everyone does it, the CDC said the bottom line is that masks work.
But do they really? A Danish study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine that The New York Times wrote about in November says that “surgical masks did not protect the wearers against infection with the coronavirus in a large randomized clinical trial.” The study included 6,000 participants.
“The researchers had hoped that masks would cut the infection rate by half among wearers. Instead, 42 people in the mask group, or 1.8 percent, got infected, compared with 53 in the unmasked group, or 2.1 percent,” the Times said at the time. “The difference was not statistically significant.”
With the current research the CDC is using to promote double masking, the Times said Dr. John Brooks, lead author of the study, “cautioned that the new study was based on laboratory experiments, and it’s unclear how these masking recommendations will perform in the real world.”
SOURCES:
The New York Times February 10, 2021
Foundation for Economic Education November 18, 2020
The New York Times November 18, 2020