The scientific rationale for the use of simple masks or improvised facial coverings to trap exhaled aerosols and possibly reduce the breathborne spread of COVID-19.

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

Who cites it

8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.

1. Clinical utility of diagnostic biomarkers in malignant pleural mesothelioma: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2021
   Pooled it
2. Factors influencing mask use and physical distancing for COVID-19: A qualitative evidence synthesis.Journal of public health in Africa · 2025
   Review
3. Acute Effects of Facial Coverings on Anaerobic Exercise Performance in College-Aged Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022
   Article
4. Being targeted: How counter-arguing and message relevance mediate the effects of cultural value appeals on disease prevention attitudes and behaviors.Frontiers in psychology · 2022
   Article
5. The physics of human breathing: flow, timing, volume, and pressure parameters for normal, on-demand, and ventilator respiration.Journal of breath research · 2021
   Article
6. SARS COV-2 virus-laden droplets coughed from deep lungs: Numerical quantification in a single-path whole respiratory tract geometry.Physics of fluids (Woodbury, N.Y. : 1994) · 2021
   Article
7. Investigating the relationship between breath aerosol size and exhaled breath condensate (EBC) metabolomic content.Journal of breath research · 2020
   Article
8. Aerosol Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: Physical Principles and Implications.Frontiers in public health
   Review

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

PubMed holds no abstract for this paper.