Shield yourself from Covid with three-layered masks: Experts

New Delhi, March 6 While buying a new face mask to protect yourself against Covid-19 infection, make sure you go for a three-layered mask as it is more effective than single or double-layered alternatives, health experts emphasised on Saturday.

According to the experts, additional layers in the mask may help us protect against SARS-CoV-2 by not letting the virus-laden contagious droplets or particles pass through the mask.

"Covid-19 is mainly spread through respiratory droplets that are made when someone who has contracted the virus through coughing, sneezing etc," Navneet Sood, Pulmonary Consultant, Dharamshila Narayana Superspeciality Hospital, told .

"As we know that the layers of a mask helps in increasing its filtration power, it becomes crucial to wear a three-layered mask, so that we can protect ourselves from getting infected or infecting people around us," Sood added.

A team of researchers, including, Saptarshi Basu of the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru and Abhishek Saha from University of California - San Diego have shown, in a study, that three-layered surgical masks are most effective at stopping large droplets from a cough or sneeze from getting atomised into smaller droplets.

These large cough droplets can penetrate through the single or double layered masks and atomise to much smaller droplets, which is particularly crucial since these smaller droplets

 

( With inputs from IANS )