ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2020
Masks Do More Than Protect Others During COVID-19: Reducing the Inoculum of SARS-CoV-2 to Protect the Wearer.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 105 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
105 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 234 citations in OpenAlex.
- Protection From COVID-19–The Efficacy of Face Masks.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2021Pooled it
- Investigation of Community Behaviors, Socioeconomic Factors, and Breakthrough COVID-19 Infections Among Vaccinated Individuals: Cross-Sectional Study.Online journal of public health informatics · 2026Article
- Changing socioeconomic inequalities in the incidence and case fatality rates of COVID-19 in Germany, March 2020 through May 2022: an ecological study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- The influence of face masks use, immunity boosters and visiting risky places on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic in Serbia and Republic of Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina).Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2025Article
- Potential Impacts of Prolonged Face Mask Use on Temporomandibular Joint Health as Neglected Lifestyle Repercussions of COVID-19 Pandemic-A Narrative Review.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Review
- Symptom propagation in respiratory pathogens of public health concern: a review of the evidence.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2024Review
- A Registry-Based Observational Study on the Maternal and Fetal Outcomes of COVID-19 Patients in Hong Kong.Maternal-fetal medicine (Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.) · 2024Article
- Please wear a mask: a systematic case for mask wearing mandates.Journal of medical ethics · 2024Article
- Evaluating the spike in the symptomatic proportion of SARS-CoV-2 in China in 2022 with variolation effects: a modeling analysis.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2024Article
- Epidemiological and health economic implications of symptom propagation in respiratory pathogens: A mathematical modelling investigation.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Mask Adherence and the Relationship Between Masking and Weather-Related Metrics.Journal of community health · 2023Article
- Children's moral reasoning about self- versus other-benefiting public health measures.Journal of experimental child psychology · 2023Article
- Prevalence of Respiratory Infections during the 2018-2020 Period in the Paediatric Population of Primary Care Centres in Central Catalonia.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- The Impact of Mask Mandates on Face Mask Use During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Survey Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2023Article
- Review
- Modelling of the Innate and Adaptive Immune Response to SARS Viral Infection, Cytokine Storm and Vaccination.Vaccines · 2023Article
- How much natural ventilation rate can suppress COVID-19 transmission in occupancy zones?Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences · 2023Article
- COVID-19 Infectious Disease Prevention and Mitigation Practices by Chiropractic Physicians and Licensed Massage Therapists in Mississippi: A Needs Assessment to Inform Health Education and Promotion.Journal of chiropractic medicine · 2022Article
- Change and Continuity in Preventive Practices Across the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Rural and Urban Latinx Immigrant Worker Families.Hygiene (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The Difference in Electromyographic Activity While Wearing a Medical Mask in Women with and without Temporomandibular Disorders.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
45 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Although the benefit of population-level public facial masking to protect others during the COVID-19 pandemic has received a great deal of attention, we discuss for one of the first times the hypothesis that universal masking reduces the "inoculum" or dose of the virus for the mask-wearer, leading to more mild and asymptomatic infection manifestations. Masks, depending on type, filter out the majority of viral particles, but not all. We first discuss the near-century-old literature around the viral inoculum and severity of disease (conceptualized as the LD50 or lethal dose of the virus). We include examples of rising rates of asymptomatic infection with population-level masking, including in closed settings (e.g., cruise ships) with and without universal masking. Asymptomatic infections may be harmful for spread but could actually be beneficial if they lead to higher rates of exposure. Exposing society to SARS-CoV-2 without the unacceptable consequences of severe illness with public masking could lead to greater community-level immunity and slower spread as we await a vaccine. This theory of viral inoculum and mild or asymptomatic disease with SARS-CoV-2 in light of population-level masking has received little attention so this is one of the first perspectives to discuss the evidence supporting this theory.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.