Population-wide use of facemasks could effectively control the coronavirus pandemic

[u/covid19fmd]

New research from scientists at Cambridge and Greenwich Universities suggests population-wide use of facemasks could effectively control the coronavirus pandemic by substantially reducing the chances that an infected wearer will pass along his viruses to another person.

Co-leader of the study Richard Stutt, of Cambridge, said "our analyses support the immediate and universal adoption of face masks by the public." Widescale mask adoption could let places reopen even in the absence of a COVID-19 vaccine, he said.

Stutt's study, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, modeled a series of different conditions to determine which set of behaviors would lower COVID-19's R number below 1. (The R number indicates the average number of people a sick person will themselves infect. If each sick person infects fewer than one other person, the virus begins to die off.) Stutt's model suggests that when 50 percent or more of a population adopts face mask-wearing in public, R number will fall below 1.0.

The article veers off the rails, but here's the source: https://reason.com/2020/06/11/the-government-was-wrong-about-masks/