Vaccinations can be critical to ending the pandemic, but masks remain one of our best individual weapons against the coronavirus.
As new, more contagious variants spread across the U.S., public health experts stressed the importance of ensuring that masks are multilayered and tightly sealed.
The end: “You really want to protect your eyes, nose and mouth from other people’s air spaces,” said dr. Alice Sato, an epidemiologist at the Children’s Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska, told Insider.
But not all masks are designed with the same protection.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined five useful tricks to make masks more protective.
Most tips involve basic surgical masks, which studies have shown are very effective in blocking respiratory droplets and smaller particles in the air, called aerosols – if worn correctly.