- Cloth masks barely filter any particles, making them near-useless for prevention of Covid spread
- Researchers built a computer model to simulate how well the masks filtered out particles, and found that 90% were able to get through
- Because cloth masks are made like clothing, and do not have filtering material built in, they fail to filter many particles
- Expert recommends using a well-fitting KN95 mask, which is considered to be the gold standard by health officials
Cloth masks do little to prevent the spread of COVID-19, or other airborne diseases, a new study finds.
Researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom found that 90 percent of particles could get through cloth masks, making them effectively useless during the pandemic.
Cloth masks have been popular in the U.S., as they are easily reusable after washing and at some points were the most accessible due to shortages and high prices for surgical or N95 masks.
Now, though, experts have discovered that these masks were doing little if anything to actually stop the spread of the virus, and likely contributed to spread as people who believed they were acting safely were not doing so.
Researchers, who published their findings Tuesday in Physics of Fluids, built an airflow simulation using 3d imaging to gauge how well different masks used during the pandemic filtered particles.
They note that unlike N95 or surgical masks, cloth masks are not built using material made to filter out particles.
Cloth masks are made out of tightly woven fabrics. While not visible to the eye, small gaps in the fabric are enough to allow for a vast majority of particles to get through.
‘Masks are air filters, and woven fabrics, such as cotton, make for good jeans, shirts, and other apparel, but they are lousy air filters,’ Richard Sear, co-author of the study and physicist at Surrey University, said in a statement.
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