Do you think face masks are helping fight the coronavirus pandemic?
Well, face masks may be inadvertently giving people Covid-19 immunity and making them get less sick from the virus, academics have suggested in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most respected medical journals in the world
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
Increasing evidence suggests that the amount of virus someone is exposed to at the start of infection - the “infectious dose” - may determine the severity of their illness
We previously wrote about that here
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
Wearing masks could therefore reduce the infectious dose that the wearer is exposed to and, subsequently, the impact of the disease, as masks filter out some virus-containing droplets
If this theory bears out, researchers argue, then population-wide mask wearing might ensure that a higher proportion of Covid-19 infections are asymptomatic
Better still, as data has emerged in last weeks suggesting that there can be strong immune responses from even mild or asymptomatic coronavirus infection, researchers say that any public health strategy that helps reduce the severity of the virus should also increase immunity
This is because even a low viral load can be enough to induce an immune response, which is effectively what a typical vaccine does.
Read more here by @Georgina__Hayes
telegraph.co.uk/global-health/…
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.