“Trust the science”
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- The Cochrane Library recently updated its 2020 systematic review of physical interventions to reduce respiratory illnesses. The update included an additional 11 randomized controlled trials, bringing the total number of RCTs included to 78
- As in its 2020 review, they found no evidence to support the use of surgical face masks or N95 respirators to prevent influenza or COVID-19 infection
- The relative risk reduction of using surgical masks in the general population (within hospitals and communities at large) to reduce symptoms of flu-like/COVID-like illness (not lab confirmed) was a statistically insignificant 0.95
- The same goes for reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza and COVID. Here, the relative risk reduction was 1.01 with a confidence interval of 0.72 to 1.42. In other words, it’s a wash. On average, it raises your risk of lab-confirmed infection by 1%. Range-wise, it may lower your risk by 28% or raise it by as much as 42%
- The review also found “no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators”
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