NEW YORK — As new COVID-19 variants continue spreading in parts of the world, some health experts are now suggesting that people wear two masks for better protection.
But what is Dr. Anthony Fauci saying about the concept of double masking amid ongoing COVID-19 concerns? During an interview with Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s TODAY earlier this week, he was asked for his thoughts on if wearing two masks would make a difference.
“It likely does because this is a physical covering to prevent droplets and virus to get in,” Dr. Fauci told Guthrie. “So if you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on it just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective. That’s the reason why you see people either double masking or doing a version of an N95.”
Researchers at Virginia Tech also say wearing two cloth masks will increase the efficacy from 50% to 75%.
“Wearing two masks helps improve the filtration ability of the mask in both directions,” said Linsey Marr, an airborne disease transmission expert of Virginia Tech. “So it helps protect you better and it helps protect others.”
Dr. Joseph Gastaldo, who specializes in infectious diseases with OhioHealth, agrees that mask layering is a good strategy.
“The more layers of filter you have, it does make sense that wearing more than one mask would do a better, more efficient job of filtering out particles in the virus,” he said, according to our Columbus news partners WBNS.
It’s a topic that quickly generated a lot of debate on social media as well.