A new study has claimed that the face masks which was worn by people round the clock to curb the spread of the Covid-19 virus did ‘little to nothing’ to stop the transmission. A new scientific review titled “Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses” claimed that the face masks failed to play a significant role in controlling the spread of the virus.
The review, which was published by Cochrane Library, included the observation of 12 researchers from around the world. The study claimed that research was conducted on the results of 78 randomised controlled trials to understand whether the physical interventions, which included hand washing and wearing face masks, restricted the spread of coronavirus.
“Wearing a mask may make little to no difference in how many people caught a flu-like illness/COVID-like illness (nine studies; 276,917 people); and probably makes little or no difference in how many people have flu/COVID confirmed by a laboratory test (six studies; 13,919 people),” stated the review as quoted by Fox News.
In the review it was claimed that N95 masks, when compared to medical/surgical masks, did not make much difference in how many people caught the flu and did not help in reducing the number of people who caught flu-like illness or any other respiratory illness.
In the study, authors stated that they had collected the data for study during the non-epidemic flu seasons, the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009, the Covid-19 pandemic and epidemic flu seasons up to 2016, Fox News reported.
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The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention had initially claimed that it is not necessary to wear face masks, however, later they appealed to people to wear masks in 2020. CDC Director Dr Robert Redfield, again in September, called the face masks the most powerful health tool after which they became mandatory across the world.
(With inputs from agencies)
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