Mask wearing in community settings reduces SARS-CoV-2 transmission

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  • Gavin Leech
  • Charlie Rogers-Smith
  • Joshua Teperowski Monrad
  • Jonas B. Sandbrink
  • Benedict Snodin
  • Robert Zinkov
  • Benjamin Rader
  • John S. Brownstein
  • Yarin Gal
  • Bhatt, Samir
  • Mrinank Sharma
  • Sören Mindermann
  • Jan M. Brauner
  • Laurence Aitchison
The effectiveness of mask wearing at controlling severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission has been unclear. While masks are known to substantially reduce disease transmission in healthcare settings [D. K. Chu et al., Lancet 395, 1973–1987 (2020); J. Howard et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 118, e2014564118 (2021); Y. Cheng et al., Science eabg6296 (2021)], studies in community settings report inconsistent results [H. M. Ollila et al., medRxiv (2020); J. Brainard et al., Eurosurveillance 25, 2000725 (2020); T. Jefferson et al., Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 11, CD006207 (2020)]. Most such studies focus on how masks impact transmission, by analyzing how effective government mask mandates are. However, we find that widespread voluntary mask wearing, and other data limitations, make mandate effectiveness a poor proxy for mask-wearing effectiveness. We directly analyze the effect of mask wearing on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, drawing on several datasets covering 92 regions on six continents, including the largest survey of wearing behavior (n=
20 million) [F. Kreuter et al., https://gisumd.github.io/COVID-19-API-Documentation (2020)]. Using a Bayesian hierarchical model, we estimate the effect of mask wearing on transmission, by linking reported wearing levels to reported cases in each region, while adjusting for mobility and nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), such as bans on large gatherings. Our estimates imply that the mean observed level of mask wearing corresponds to a 19% decrease in the reproduction number R. We also assess the robustness of our results in 60 tests spanning 20 sensitivity analyses. In light of these results, policy makers can effectively reduce transmission by intervening to increase mask wearing.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummere2119266119
TidsskriftProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Vol/bind119
Udgave nummer23
Antal sider9
ISSN0027-8424
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2022

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank Swapnil Mishra for cloud infrastructure and moral support; we thank Tomásˇ Gavencˇiak for help debugging and plotting. We thank Jan Kulveit for strategizing. G.L. was supported by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Centre for Doctoral Training in Interactive Artificial Intelligence

Funding Information:
Award(EP/S022937/1).C.R.-S.wassupportedbyagrantfromOpenPhilanthropy. M.S. was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems Award (EP/S024050/1) and a grant from the Effective Altruism Funds program. S.M.’s funding for graduate studies was from Oxford University and DeepMind. S.B. acknowledges funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis Award (MR/R015600/1), jointly funded by the UK MRC and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), under the MRC/FCDO Concordat agreement, part of the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership program supported by the European Union; and acknowledges funding by Community Jameel, UKRI Award (MR/V038109/1), the Academy of Medical Sciences Springboard Award (SBF004/1080), the MRC Award (MR/R015600/1), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Award (OPP1197730), Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust-Biomedical Research Centre Funding Award (RDA02), the Novo Nordisk Young Investigator Award (NNF20OC0059309) and the National Institute for Health and Care Research Health Protection Research Unit in Modelling Methodology. J.M.B. was supported by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems Award (EP/S024050/1) and by Cancer Research UK. J.B.S. and B.R. acknowledge funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Award (75D30120C07727), Flu Lab, and Ending Pandemics. S.B. thanks Microsoft AI for Health and AWS for compute credit.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2022 the Author(s).

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