Mbabane: Making face masks compulsory could slow the spread of Covid-19 by as much as 40 per cent, a study suggests.
Researchers assessed the effect face coverings had on regional epidemics in Germany when they were made mandatory in shops and public transport in April. The move slashed the number of new infections over the next 20 days by almost a quarter, rising to 40 percent after two months.
The scientists said their study provided ‘strong and convincing statistical support’ that masks ‘strongly reduced the number of incidences’. In England, Government’s scientists are not convinced masks are helpful in other scenarios and believe they may give people the false confidence to take unnecessary risks that lead to infection.
Eswatini government has also made the use of facemasks compulsory as announced by the Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini.
On Thursday, 51 new confirmed positive cases were announced while 31 and 27 were announced on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. As of Thursday, Eswatini had 449 COVID-19 confirmed cases, 238 recoveries and three deaths.
After much toing and froing, ministers in England finally announced that masks will be compulsory for people using public transport in England. But there have been calls to extend the measures to include shops, which reopen next week like Eswatini.
Eswatini will from Monday June 15 open most of its businesses, if not all in an attempt to save an ailing economy with strict Covid-19 regulations mandatory. The regulations include a gathering of not more than 20 people, compulsory facemasks wearing, social distancing and sanitizing among other things.
However, following the opening of the economy, allowing more businesses to operate, Eswatini has seen an increasing number of confirmed cases. In the last 72 hours, 102 cases have been confirmed.
In the latest study, scientists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the University of Southern Denmark analysed the central German city of Jena. The small city of little over 10 000 people became the first in Germany to make it compulsory to wear masks in shops and on buses and trains on April 6.
The number of positive coronavirus cases recorded in the city fell by 13 per cent in the first 10 days and 23 per cent over the next 20 days. After two months the epidemic had shrunk by 60 per cent, but the researchers say 20 per cent of this reduction was caused by the virus naturally petering out due to the lockdown.
Writing in the study, published as a discussion paper for the Institute of Labour Economics, the scientists write: ‘We believe that the reduction in the growth rates of infections by 40 percent to 60 percent is our best estimate of the effects of face masks. This is a sizeable effect. Wearing facemasks apparently helped considerably in reducing the spread of Covid-19. The most convincing argument stresses that Jena introduced face masks before any other region did so.
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