<story><title>UMD study: N95 masks nearly perfect at blocking Covid</title><url>https://today.umd.edu/n95-masks-nearly-perfect-at-blocking-covid-umd-study-shows</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>legitster</author><text>&amp;gt; Cloth masks also outperformed both KN95 and surgical masks. Milton theorizes that cloth variants were the second-most effective masks tested because of greater coverage that wraps around the face and gives a better seal than either KN95 or surgical masks. Flow resistance is also lower, allowing breath to pass through rather than around the filter.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m always baffled by the people who went around arguing masks did nothing. They don&amp;#x27;t seem to have any problem accepting that a sneeze guard at a salad bar does something, or that a surgeon should put something on their face to prevent them from coughing into your open body cavity.&lt;p&gt;We can argue all day about specific masks under specific settings, or when it is worth it to bother, but &amp;quot;putting something in front of your face prevents you from breathing out particles&amp;quot; is in the category of &amp;quot;things that are pretty f&amp;amp;%*ing obvious&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>UMD study: N95 masks nearly perfect at blocking Covid</title><url>https://today.umd.edu/n95-masks-nearly-perfect-at-blocking-covid-umd-study-shows</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>grumple</author><text>Link to study: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thelancet.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;ebiom&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;PIIS2352-3964(24)00192-0&amp;#x2F;fulltext&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.thelancet.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;ebiom&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;PIIS2352-39...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;More surprising is that cloth masks were better than KN95s! That&amp;#x27;s pretty cool. Sample size was quite small though (only 8 cloth mask participants) and the study in general had a pretty small sample size (surely it couldn&amp;#x27;t have been difficult to find covid-positive individuals?).</text></comment>