"There are also new options available to consumers called mask fitters, small reusable devices that cinch a cloth or medical mask, and that can create a tighter fit against the face, and thus improve mask performance."
"Dr. Brooks cautioned that the new study was based on laboratory experiments, and it’s unclear how these masking recommendations will perform in the real world (the experiments used three-ply surgical and cloth masks).“But it’s very clear evidence that the more of us who wear masks and the better the mask fits, the more each of us benefit individually.” - Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the C.D.C.
The CDC Says Tight-Fit Masks or Double Masking Increases Protection
Roni Caryn Rabin, Sheryl Gay Stolberg
NYTimes
Research has demonstrated that Covid-19 infections and deaths have decreased when policies that require everyone to wear a mask have been implemented. So with cases, hospitalizations and deaths still very high, now is not the time to roll back mask requirements. I have also seen very many well-meaning people wearing masks that do not fit well or fit incorrectly. In fact, recent survey data from Porter Novelli found that among adults who reported wearing masks in the past week, half said they wore their masks incorrectly in public. New data released from C.D.C. today underscore the importance of wearing a mask correctly and making sure it fits closely and snugly over your nose and mouth. The C.D.C. is updating the mask information for the public on the C.D.C. website to provide new options on how to improve mask fit. This includes wearing a mask with a moldable nose wire, knotting the ear loops on your mask or wearing a cloth mask over a procedure or disposable mask. There are also new options available to consumers called mask fitters, small reusable devices that cinch a cloth or medical mask, and that can create a tighter fit against the face, and thus improve mask performance. The bottom line is this: Masks work and they work best when they have a good fit, and are worn correctly.
Wearing a mask — any mask — reduces the risk of infection with the coronavirus, but wearing a more tightly fitted surgical mask, or layering a cloth mask atop a surgical mask, can vastly increase protections to the wearer and others, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Wednesday.
New research by the agency shows that transmission of the virus can be reduced by up to 96.5 percent if both an infected individual and an uninfected individual wear tightly fitted surgical masks or a cloth-and-surgical-mask combination.
Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the C.D.C., announced the findings during Wednesday’s White House coronavirus briefing, and coupled them with a plea for Americans to wear “a well-fitting mask” that has two or more layers. President Biden has challenged Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his presidency, and Dr. Walensky said that masks were especially crucial given the concern about new variants circulating.
“With cases hospitalizations and deaths still very high, now is not the time to roll back mask requirements,” she said, adding, “The bottom line is this: Masks work, and they work when they have a good fit and are worn correctly.”
Virus-related deaths, which resurged sharply in the United States in November and still remain high, appear to be in a steady decline; new virus cases and hospitalizations began to drop last month. But researchers warn that a more contagious virus variant first found in Britain is doubling roughly every 10 days in the United States. The C.D.C. cautioned last month that it could become the dominant variant in the nation by March.
As of Feb. 1, 14 states and the District of Columbia had implemented universal masking mandates; masking is now mandatory on federal property and on domestic and international transportation. But while masks are known to both reduce respiratory droplets and aerosols exhaled by infected wearers and to protect the uninfected wearer, their effectiveness varies widely because of air leaking around the edges of the mask.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/world/double-mask-protection-cdc.html