S1E55 / Mask Up / Linsey Marr, Kim Prather, Delphine Wallis

You know, you look at the countries that have been successful in this, you know, they've done a lot of things, but they're also the countries that wear masks the most.

And if you do choose to wear a mask, a high-performing mask that fits well all the time, you avoid restaurants, bars, masks do work.

You're listening to Epidemic, the podcast about the science, public health, and social impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. I'm your host, Dr. Celine Gounder. Masks are one of the most important tools we have to fight the pandemic. But a lot of people find them uncomfortable. And I get it. When I'm working at the hospital, I wear one all day. It's a pain, but it keeps me and everyone else safe. But not everyone thinks masks are so bad.

I just need to put out all my masks. I have plenty of good ones.

This is my niece, Delphine.

I'll show you the one that kind of looks like a doggie. I'll show you it. Glows in the dark blue.

Delphine loves face masks. What do you like about wearing masks?

Um, they're pretty and they have different colors. Let me count how many I actually have right now.

So you're counting your favorites now?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

She has a lot of favorite masks.

This is my favorite because it has flamingos. And my second favorite is this one and then this one. And they're pink and it's my favorite color just like the other one. And this is my favorite because it's glittery and I really like glitter. This is my favorite one because it like has a really cute flower that's hidden at the top.

My first question for you, Delphine, is do you know why you have to wear a mask?

Because of the disease.

And then what are you covering on your face with the mask?

My mouth and my nose.

So why is it important to cover your nose and mouth?

Because you might breathe out and you might have disease.

So is the mask to protect you or is it to protect other people or both?

Everyone.

So where do you wear your masks?

I wear my mask at the store, going biking with my dad. Maybe I should do that after, actually.

Go biking?

Yeah, my mom wouldn't actually let me because I don't have Because you have this conference call with me?

Yeah.

And how does it make you sick?

Um, I don't know that part though.

You don't know that part? Okay. My niece might be the authority on fun masks, but she's a little too young to dive into the science of how masks protect us from the coronavirus. Don't worry, we have some other experts who can fill us in on the rest.

I'm Kimberly Prather. I'm a professor of atmospheric chemistry at University of California, San Diego.

My name is Dr. Linsey Marr. I'm a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech.

Linsey Marr and Kim Prather were two of the authors of a recent article in Science about how SARS-CoV-2 moves through the air. They're going to be our guides in this episode on transmission and masks. They'll help us understand the latest science behind coronavirus transmission.

Different expertise has come in and clarified that it's in the aerosols, the smaller stuff that floats, that goes much further than 6 feet.

What this means for public health recommendations.

We need masks, we need good ventilation, we need hygiene, multiple interventions.

And how you can protect yourself.

You can easily get over a 90% reduction in risk Today on Epidemic: What airborne transmission means for masks.

An ongoing debate since the beginning of the pandemic has been how SARS-CoV-2 spreads. Two words you've probably heard a lot are droplets and aerosols. These are tiny bits of solids and liquids that get released into the air when you sneeze, sing, or even just talk normally.

The droplets go like little mini cannonballs is how we describe them. And they fall. They're just falling. Whereas aerosols float.

Droplets and aerosols can be smaller than the width of a spider's silk, but they're still bigger than a virus. So when someone infected with SARS-CoV-2 sneezes, for example, the virus can catch a ride on these particles, kind of like a hitchhiker. If somebody else breathes in those particles with the virus on board, they can get sick. A lot of the public health recommendations so far have assumed that the bigger, heavier droplets account for a lot of the spread.

The traditional medical view is that it's in these big droplets. And so with big droplets, you're safe as long as you keep this magical 6 feet apart.

But research has started to point to aerosols, not droplets, as the more important mode of transmission.

All of the data we have when virus has been detected, SARS-CoV-2, this virus has been detected, it has been detected in the micron and submicron sizes, in the very smallest sizes. We don't have yet any evidence that it's in the sort of more traditional droplets that you hear about.

The growing evidence that aerosols are major carriers of the coronavirus has big implications for public health. Think about social distancing. Recommendations like the 6-foot rule are based on the assumption that droplets are responsible for the spread.

Those aerosols can move across the room. 6 feet is nothing to an aerosol. And as you go further away, that ratio of aerosol particles becomes even higher. So just based on what's the chance of you inhaling something versus having it hit you in the eye, nose, or mouth, it's just much more likely to inhale aerosols than it is to get splatted by the random ballistic missile that's coming at you.

And someone can produce a lot more aerosols than droplets.

There's about 1,000 more aerosols produced while you're speaking, sometimes more if you're yelling or singing.

This changes how people should assess their risk for exposure, especially indoors.

You know, think of cigarette smoke. You say that to a little kid, you say that to anyone, and they're like, oh yeah, everybody knows how smoke builds up in a room. Same thing with aerosols.

That ability to build up in a room is why Kim says aerosols, and not droplets, are the likely culprit behind many superspreader events.

And so in that case, just staying 6 feet apart is definitely not enough. This is where masks become hugely important.

This shift in focus from droplets to aerosols could impact everything from the kind of mask you should wear to your day-to-day behavior. But it also means we need to rethink how we design our buildings, especially when it comes to ventilation. Many existing buildings recirculate the same air over and over again because it saves on energy costs.

You know, we went into climate change, we developed buildings that are certified as, you know, low energy. And by definition, we sealed them up. We got rid of ventilation. By going towards saving energy, we actually made buildings that have much less healthy indoor air.

Improving the ventilation in a building could be as simple as opening windows, but there are other options too. Improved filters in HVAC systems, even using UV irradiation to kill viruses inside the ductwork. Hospitals generally have pretty good ventilation. But many of the places we spend the most time don't.

The big one, homes. Homes by definition are poorly ventilated. They're sealed up.

Another big one is schools. Kim says investments in better ventilation in schools should be a top priority. It would keep schools running safely during the pandemic, but it would have other benefits too. It would make schools more resilient if there were another epidemic. It would also improve air quality for people with asthma or other respiratory issues.

It's a no-brainer to pick schools as being an investment that will save in the medical community for years to come.

But in the meantime, one of the best options is simple and inexpensive: wearing a mask. Next, we'll hear about an experiment Lindsay ran at her lab to figure out the safest mask to wear. That's after the break. To study how masks can limit the spread of coronavirus, Linsey built a pretty interesting experiment in her lab.

We set up a special chamber, which is really just a large plastic bin, and we put two mannequin heads in it. And those mannequin heads are on opposite sides of the chamber, so like they're talking to each other at close distance.

Both mannequins have holes where their mouths would be. The mannequin standing in for a sick person has a nebulizer attached to its mouth.

If we want to test how well the mask protects others, we put a mask on the mannequin that's attached to the medical nebulizer. So that's our kind of sick person. And we would then run the nebulizer and generate this spray of droplets into the chamber. And we would see how many end up in the opposite mannequin's mouth.

The more droplets and aerosols they find in the other mannequin's mouth, the more likely the virus would be to infect someone. Linsey's experiment showed that wearing a good cloth mask can block a lot of the droplets and aerosols that would carry the virus.

For the really small ones, the cloth masks don't do nearly as well as an N95, but we think those are less important for transmission. So for the larger aerosols, 1 micron and larger. The cloth masks block even up to 80% of those. And once you get up to even just 2 microns, just a little bit bigger, now we're looking at kind of 80% or better for a good cloth mask. And so that reduction is going to make a big difference in how many viruses are out there in the air that other people could be exposed to.

How well do masks protect the wearer?

Masks also protect the wearer. The same mechanism or the same way that they filter out particles and aerosols on the way out, they also work for air flowing into the mask that you might be breathing in.

Lindsay says they're not quite as effective at protecting the wearer of the mask from someone who's sick, but it still provides a lot of protection.

Even a thin single layer of tightly woven cotton can block out half of those aerosols that are 1 to 2 microns. And once you get up to slightly larger sizes, that can filter out 80% of what's coming in.

And there's a multiplier effect if everyone is wearing a mask. Imagine 2 people talking to each other. Let's assume they're both wearing masks that are 50% effective at blocking aerosols and droplets.

So the sick person releases 100 viruses into the air. The mask blocks 50 of those, so 50 get out into the air. The other person who's exposed is going to pull in all 50 of those towards their mouth, but if their mask is 50% effective, then only 25 are going to get through. So you've taken a mask that's only 50% effective, and now both people are wearing them, all of a sudden you've gotten 75% effectiveness. You can achieve really high levels of reduction in exposure if everyone's wearing a mask.

But not everyone is on the same page when it comes to what makes for a good mask.

There are some masks out there that are really good. There are also masks out there that are barely better than anything. So there's huge variability in cloth masks. People don't wear them perfectly all the time. We see a lot of people with large gaps or the mask isn't covering their noses.

Fit is another issue Kim says a lot of people don't think about.

That's why an N95 is actually not as perfect as you might think, right? Everybody thinks N95 is the gold standard, but if those aren't fitting your face right, they can drop from being 95%, which is what the 95 stands for, they can drop to 30% where they don't fit to your face properly, which is probably pretty common for people in the public. So personally, I'd rather give masks out to the public, and this is what they've done in other countries, they've given masks out to the public that are easier to wear correctly.

So what are you supposed to do if the materials and fit aren't always as good as they should be? Linsey says the solution is to mask with several layers at once.

Yeah, based on our study and other studies, we're now recommending a 3-layer mask where it's a sandwich and the middle layer is some kind of filter material.

Something like a HEPA filter or a surgical mask. Linsey says you could even cut up a vacuum bag or an HVAC filter, as long as it's rated MERV 14 or higher.

The bread of the sandwich, the outer layers, should be a tightly woven material that is flexible so that it can help the whole mask fit well to your face and be comfortable all day.

So maybe layering a cloth mask over a surgical mask, say.

Yes, absolutely. If you have a surgical mask underneath and wear a cloth mask on top to help hold the surgical mask closer to your face, and also that cloth mask will provide an extra layer of filtration, you'll get very good performance that way.

Being vigilant about wearing a mask is even more important now as some people are getting together for Christmas and other holidays in the coming weeks.

I say you can eat outside. You should be at least 6 feet apart. When you're eating, when you're physically shoving food in your mouth or drinking, you can pull the mask away. But as much as you can, I know this is terrible, but as much as you can, this is terrible, I'm not very fun at events right now, you should have that mask on, even outside, just to be safe. Because think about it this way, I'm an atmospheric chemist, I know how wind patterns go. And so like, let's say you told someone that and they were downwind of someone that's sick, even if they're 6 feet away, that air is gonna be blowing from that person straight to them for what, an hour, 2 hours of sitting outside? That will build up over time. It's almost like people are looking for permission to drop the mask. Having that mask is just so important, especially right now as we are just in a terrible, terrible state. I think we have to be over, over cautious right now.

Kim says she usually wears a blue surgical mask. But that isn't enough anymore.

The numbers are going up where I live. And so I now am wearing a medical mask or surgical mask and an N95. I'm wearing both. So I'm being extra, extra cautious at this point just because the spread in our community is skyrocketing.

The week we were working on this episode, the number of Americans killed by COVID surpassed 300,000. This week also saw a nearly 30% increase in cases nationally over the previous 14 days. And with Christmas and New Year's around the corner, there's never been a more important time to wear a mask and avoid large gatherings.

Masks are absolutely essential because you can't always control when someone gets too close to you, right? You can't control the ventilation in every store that you go into, right? The thing you control the most You have 100% control over is that mask.

Hey everyone, quick programming note. This is the last episode of Epidemic for the year. We'll be back with new episodes every Thursday starting January 7th. See you in 2021. Okay, the credits. Epidemic is brought to you by Just Human Productions. We're funded in part by listeners like you. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. Today's episode was produced by Zach Dyer and me. Our music is by The Blue Dot Sessions. Our interns are Tabitha Gordillo, Annabelle Chen, and Brian Chen. If you enjoy the show, please tell a friend about it today. And if you haven't already done so, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps more people find out about the show. And Just Human Productions is now on Instagram. Check us out @justhumanproductions to learn more about the characters and big ideas we cover on Epidemic and our sister podcast, American Diagnosis. You can learn more about this podcast, how to engage with us on social media, and how to support the podcast at epidemic.fm. That's epidemic.fm. Just Human Productions is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, so your donations to support our podcasts are tax deductible. Go to epidemic.fm to make a donation. We release Epidemic every week, but producing a podcast costs money. We've got to pay our staff, so please make a donation to help us keep this going. And check out our sister podcast, American Diagnosis. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at americandiagnosis.fm. .fm. On American Diagnosis, we cover some of the biggest public health challenges affecting the nation today. In Season 1, we covered youth and mental health. In Season 2, the opioid overdose crisis. And in Season 3, gun violence in America. I'm Dr. Celine Gounder. Thanks for listening to Epidemic.