people who are refusing not to wear a mask are not helping reduce transmission of coronavirus

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Take away: Though not a guarantee of health, wearing masks reduces the number of respiratory infections compared to no/inconsistent mask wearing.

The claim: Masks are protective against clinical respiratory illness.

The evidence: The authors performed a meta-analysis of random controlled trials and observational studies examining mask use in health care workers. The results showed that wearing masks resulted in fewer infections compared to people without masks. These results agree with other publications (1, 2). One pre-print article which performed meta-analysis showed inconclusive results concerning the effectiveness of masks (3). Based on these meta-analyses, mask wearing results in fewer respiratory infections, though it will not prevent all infections when used as the sole protective measure.

Sources:

1) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32497510/

2) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27632416/

3) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.30.20047217v2

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It sounds like it's recommended because a significant portion of people with coronavirus are asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic, and the virus can spread through speaking, coughing or sneezing.

There's no "proof" that these work, but there's a hope that it helps along with hand washing and a distance of six feet.

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