As it turns out the advice of any mask is better than no mask is not always true, according to a recent study published in the journal Science Advances fleece neck gaiters and bandanas used as masks are the least effective at stopping droplets when talking.
Duke University North Carolina researchers investigated the effectiveness of 14 masks and face coverings ability to stop droplets that people expel while talking; each covering was tested 10 times by one speaker and 3 of them by four speakers, all of whom were asked to say the phrase “Stay healthy people.”
“We confirmed that when people speak, small droplets get expelled, so disease can be spread by talking, without coughing or sneezing,” Martin Fischer, one of the study authors, an associate research professor at Duke said. “We could also see that some face coverings performed much better than others in blocking expelled particles.”
