key: cord-0904842-p5hljkkm
authors: Zhou, Zhi‐Guo; Yue, Dong‐Sheng; Mu, Chen‐Lu; Zhang, Lei
title: Mask is the possible key for self‐isolation in COVID‐19 pandemic
date: 2020-04-08
journal: J Med Virol
DOI: 10.1002/jmv.25846
sha: ffcf2e6fdc5d000af9a665dd4601ac8385fabb3e
doc_id: 904842
cord_uid: p5hljkkm

Ma's research shows N95 masks, medical masks, even homemade masks could block at least 90% of the virus in aerosols(1). This study puts the debate on whether the public wear masks back on the table. Recently Science interviewed Dr. Gao, director‐general of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

States mainly adopt the method of social distance between people to reach 6 feet to prevent infection, but for the COVID-19 pandemic, it may not be effective as we supposed.

First of all, the disease is highly contagious, and whether a virus with a reproduction number of more than 2 can achieve true isolation through the so-called social distance by feet is a matter of probability rather than mathematics.

A recent MIT study published in JAMA found that social distance requires 27 feet to be guaranteed not to be infected, which is not operational in real life 3 . In addition, there are a large number of asymptomatic infections in this outbreak.

They look as asymptomatic as ordinary people, but these groups are as infectious as symptomatic patients 4 . As "normal people", the surrounding population will lose their vigilance. In fact, in high-risk areas with a large number of patients, without sufficient testing to confirm clean, everyone can only be seen as potential infected, including themselves. Under such circumstances, wearing a mask is the default solution. Finally, the issue of propagation in confined spaces is a very important issue which was often ignored. Tests have shown that COVID-19 can exist for several hours in the state of the smallest of these droplets, sometimes called aerosols 5 . In fact, there have been cases of concentrated infection by a large number of people in confined spaces 6 . When we perform so-called "necessary activities" in a closed environment in supermarkets, banks, or public This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

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