Thread by @hkumed

An @HKUMed study examined the use of surgical masks to prevent #SARSCoV2 transmission in hamsters. It found that using a mask reduces not only the risk of infection, but also the severity of the disease.

(1/5) #COVID19

Method:

Healthy and infected hamsters were housed in separate cages placed next to each other.

A surgical mask partition was placed on either side to separate the cages, with air flowing from the infected side to the healthy side.

(2/5) #COVID19

Key takeaways:

🐹 No mask barrier: 66.7% (10 of 15) of healthy hamsters were infected
🐹 Barrier on infected side: 16.7% (2 of 12) were infected
🐹 Barrier on healthy side: 33.3% (4 of 12) were infected

(3/5) #COVID19

Key takeaways:

🐹 The disease was more severe in originally infected hamsters than healthy hamsters infected later
🐹 Possibly because the former received a larger amount of virus than the latter which were infected through respiratory droplets or aerosols

(4/5) #COVID19

For more - Surgical mask partition reduces the risk of non-contact transmission in a golden Syrian hamster model for #COVID19 (5/5)

academic.oup.com/cid/article/do…