United States: A recent investigation published online on July 24 in The BMJ reveals that donning surgical masks in communal environments is correlated with a diminished risk of self-reported respiratory infection symptoms.
Runar Barstad Solberg, Ph.D., from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, alongside his research team, executed a pragmatic randomized superiority trial. This trial involved 4,647 adult participants, aiming to evaluate the personal protective benefits of wearing surgical masks in public settings versus not wearing them, according to the reports by HealthDay News.
The study divided participants into two groups: an intervention cohort of 2,371 individuals, instructed to wear surgical masks in public for 14 days, and a control group of 2,276 individuals who did not receive this directive.
The researchers documented 163 incidents of self-reported symptoms indicative of respiratory infection within the mask-wearing group, compared to 239 incidents in the control group. This equates to 8.9 percent versus 12.2 percent, respectively, resulting in a marginal odds ratio of 0.71 in favor of the mask intervention (absolute risk difference, −3.2 percent). However, no significant impact was observed concerning self-reported or confirmed COVID-19 infections.
“The effect size was moderate, but wearing a face mask is a simple intervention with low burden and of relatively low cost and is one of several public health and social measures that may be worth considering for reducing the spread of respiratory infections,” the authors mentioned, as reported by HealthDay News.
It is noteworthy that one author is listed as an inventor on a patent application related to vaccine development, underscoring the broader implications of the study within the context of public health advancements.