Keep your masks tight as Covid-19 variants are ‘getting better’ at airborne transmission

A new study confirms that coronavirus is increasingly becoming airborne and can spread more rapidly and affect a lot more people in just one exhale. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland said that compared to people infected with the original form of the virus that causes COVID-19, those with a more recent strain exhaled 43 to 100 times more of it into the air, indicating that the disease is evolving to become more airborne.

To test whether masks work in blocking the virus from being transmitted among people, the study measured the amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus that is exhaled by the infected subject first without a mask, and then after putting on a cloth or surgical mask.

The researchers found that covering the face and mouth using masks reduced the amount of virus that got into the air by about 50%. The study compared the original form of SARS-CoV-2 to the Alpha variant, the dominant one when experimentation was conducted and was published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

As research indicates that successive variants keep getting better at traveling through the air, better ventilation and tight-fitting masks, in addition to vaccination, can help offset the increased risk.

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