DIY masks: Is paper towel effective at

blocking viruses
 2020-03-08  Paddy Robertson  Masks

In a recent study, researchers tested household materials that

could be used to make DIY masks, but they didn’t test another
common material—paper towel (also called “kitchen paper”).
Smart Air Engineer Paddy tested the effectiveness of paper towel
in the Smart Air test lab in Beijing.
Paddy used a Met One particle counter to test how well a single
and double layer of paper towel filtered out particles down to 0.3
microns. Paddy ran the Met One for one minute, measuring the
total number of particles passing through the paper towel and
comparing it to the case with no paper towel.

 
Just how small is 0.3 microns compared to viruses? The
coronavirus measures approximately 0.1 microns in diameter, so 3
times smaller than measured in our test. However 0.3 microns is
an important size to test, because 0.3 micron particles are the
most difficult to capture.
You read that right. 0.3 micron particles are actually harder to
capture than 0.1 micron particles. Read why here »

The results – kitchen paper effectiveness at capturing 0.3

micron particles
The results weren’t great. A single layer of paper towel captured
just 23% particles, and the double layer captured 33%.

The Met One also measures particles 2.5 microns and above
(labelled in the graph as ‘2.5 microns’). The single and double layer
kitchen paper did better at capturing these bigger particles,
capturing 52% of the smaller 0.3 micron particles.

A note on mask leakage when using paper towel

One thing we didn’t test in this experiment was how leaky a DIY
mask made out of paper towel (kitchen towel) would be. Data
shows that mask fit can have an important impact on the
effectiveness of the mask to capture particles. That’s one of the
reasons why surgical masks filter out fewer particles than N95
masks.
But… Mask Leakage Has a Small Effect on Preventing
Virus Infection
Despite surgical masks (and potentially DIY masks) being more
leaky than N95 masks, data shows that surgical masks are just as
effective as N95 masks at preventing the transmission of viruses.
The exact reason for this is unknown, but some scientists
hypothesize that any mask will reduce the amount you tough your
face, helping in reducing the transmission of viruses from your
hands to your mouth, nose and eyes.

Bottom line on paper towel for DIY masks

Paper towel performed significantly worse than other DIY mask
materials tested by Cambridge researchers. However, if there is no
other choice available for materials for your DIY mask, paper towel
still scored better than nothing.
 
N95 Masks vs. Surgical Masks: Which Is
Better at Preventing The Coronavirus?
 2020-03-01  Thomas Talhelm  Coronavirus, Masks

Scientists have actually randomized people to wear N95 or regular

surgical masks, then tracked how many people got infected with
colds and flus similar to the coronavirus. This data can tell us
whether N95 or surgical masks are more effective at preventing
transmission of viruses. The results surprised me.
 Coronavirus & Mask Livestream
Wondering whether masks work to protect you against the
coronavirus? Check out our livestream recap covering all the info
here!
 

People’s Intuitions About N95 Masks and The

Coronavirus
The results are surprising because I’ve seen several people claim
that we need N95 masks to stop the coronavirus. They say
surgical masks just won’t cut it when it comes to the coronavirus.
 

 
Similarly, a doctor interviewed on CNN said that masks don’t work.
 
And to be honest, that’s my intuition too. N95 masks fit a lot
tighter than surgical masks, and they capture a higher percentage
of particles. They’re what I wear in Delhi and Beijing.
 

The Surgical Mask vs. N95 Mask Test

Scientists tested this question by randomly assigning over 2,000
nurses to wear N95 or surgical masks. Then they tracked how
many of them caught the flu.
 
 
I polled people on Twitter to see what people guessed. A majority
(68%) guessed N95, so I’m not alone in my intuition.
 

 
But when the data came back, it turned out that rates of infection
were the same!
 

 
Differences weren’t significant, although surgical mask users
actually had slightly lower infection rates.
 

OK, Maybe That Study Was a Fluke

Data can be fluke-y. That’s just one study. But it’s not the only one.
 

 
Researchers in Canada randomly assigned 446 nurses to wear N95
or surgical masks during a few months of cold and flu seasons
(September to December). Then they tracked how many got the flu
or a cold.
 

 
Again, no significant difference! Both masks performed just as well
at preventing the transmission of the viruses. Twenty percent of
nurses wearing surgical masks got sick versus 22% wearing N95
masks.
 

Entirely Reasonable Skepticism

At this point, there must be at least a few savvy readers thinking,
“aha!”
 
I know what’s going on! These studies didn’t have a control group,
so we don’t know whether the masks actually worked. If they both
don’t work, then of course there’s no significant difference!
That’s a great question. It’s just hard to test because, what are we
going to do? Assign nurses to NOT wear masks? That seems
irresponsible.
What we need is some situation where people face infection but
don’t normally wear masks. It turns out, scientists found just such
a place:
 
 
Home!
 

The No-Mask Test on Viruses

Researchers in Australia studied parents taking care of their
children, who were sick with the flu.
 

 
Because people often don’t wear masks at home (even around
sick people), researchers could defensibly randomly assign people
to wear masks or not. They randomly assigned parents to wear no
mask, a surgical mask, or an N95 masks like the one I’m wearing
here.
 
 
Then they tracked how many parents got the flu.
Compared to parents not wearing masks, parents wearing surgical
masks had 27% odds of getting the flu versus 24% wearing N95
masks (called “P2” masks here).
 

 
Thus, masks seemed to work! But again, surgical masks were just
as effective as N95 masks. And the effect size was fairly large—
75% reduction in infection risk.
The table above reports hazard ratios, not raw percentages. In raw
percentages, 17% of all participants got sick versus 5% among
surgical masks and 4% wearing N95 masks.
 

Perhaps not surprisingly, the masks only worked for people who
actually wore them. There was no benefit among people who often
forgot or just gave up on wearing the mask.
 

How on Earth Could Surgical Masks Work

as Well as N95 Masks at Capturing Viruses
OK, at this point, there must still be some skeptical readers out
there. There’s no way that surgical masks can capture particles
that small! I saw a doctor on Quora say that “most masks” can’t
capture particles the size of viruses.
 

 
But when we ignore our intuition and look at actual test data,
reality is far more interesting. Test data shows surgical masks are
surprisingly effective, even for tiny particles. For example, in one
study, researchers tested particles down to .007
microns (even smaller than viruses) and found that a simple
surgical mask blocked 80%.
 

 
Yet still, N95 and N99 masks outscore them. For example, in that
study, N95 masks captured 96% (see also 1).
 
 
So it’s downright surprising that surgical masks are just as
effective! Maybe virus particles are actually easy to capture
because they fly on water droplets. Or maybe mask usage
prevents people from touching their mouth and nose. For now, I
can only speculate.
 
Bottom line: There’s scientific evidence finding that (1) masks
prevent flu infection and (2) surgical masks prevent infection of
viruses like the coronavirus (Covid-19), as well as more
sophisticated N95 masks.
Breathe safe!
P.S. Do we even know whether masks capture tiny virus
particles? Aren’t they too small for masks?
This is a solid intuition I’ve seen several times, including here on
Quora, repeated by a doctor.
 
 
The only problem it doesn’t fit the data. I summarize that data
here: Can wearing masks stop the spread of the coronavirus?
 
 

Can DIY homemade masks protect us

from coronavirus
 2020-03-04  Paddy Robertson  Coronavirus, Masks
DIYing your own air pollution mask to protect against from viruses
sounds like a crazy idea. Data shows masks work incredibly well,
and they’re also really cheap. A surgical mask costs just a few
cents, and it’s capable of filtering out 80% of particles down to
0.007 microns (14 times smaller than the coronavirus).
However, the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak of 2019 brought
with it a new problem: masks are all sold out:

People have scrambled to make their own masks, but can

homemade masks really protect you from the coronavirus? Smart
Air has analyzed the data to give you the answer.
 One Users’ DIY ‘anti-virus’ mask

The Homemade DIY Mask Test

Scientists from the University of Cambridge asked this exact
question in the aftermath of the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. They
thought that in a global pandemic scenario, we might run out of
N95 masks. Their predictions have come true during the
coronavirus outbreak.
The researchers asked volunteers to make their own masks using
cotton t-shirts and a sewing machine, using a simple protocol
they’d devised. They then compared their effectiveness with
surgical masks at filtering particles as small as 0.65 microns.
The homemade cotton masks captured 71% of 0.65-1.1 micron
particles, compared with 86% for the surgical mask. Although the
surgical masks captured 15% more particles, the cotton masks did
surprisingly well. The researchers concluded that homemade
masks would be better than nothing.
 Coronavirus & Mask Livestream
Wondering whether masks work to protect you against the
coronavirus? Check out our livestream recap covering all the info
here!

What About Smaller-Sized Particles?

The Cambridge data shows that homemade masks can filter out
some particles that are 0.65–1.1 microns in size. That’s pretty
good, however most viruses are smaller than this, and the
coronavirus is 0.1 microns. A group of researchers in the
Netherlands tested homemade masks made from a tea cloth for
smaller particles, that are more similar in size to viruses.
They tested what percentage of particles the masks could capture
for even smaller particles than the Cambridge researchers: from
0.02 to 1 micron. They used a fit-test machine to test the masks
while people were actually wearing them.
The tea cloth mask captured 60% of the even smaller, 0.02 – 1
micron particles. Not surprisingly, the surgical mask and N95 mask
captured more particles, but the data shows homemade mask was
far from useless at capturing virus-sized particles.
How Long can you Wear DIY Masks for?
They then tested the masks’ effectiveness after people had worn
them for 3 hours. The results showed that moisture and time had
very little impact on effectiveness for any of the masks.
In fact, the homemade masks actually got 5.8% more effective at
filtering virus-sized particles after 3 hours. From this, we can
conclude that wearing homemade masks for several hours won’t
reduce their effectiveness.

How well do homemade masks work

for children?
Next, they tested homemade masks with 11 children 5 to 11 years
old. When kids wore the homemade masks, they removed just 52%
of the 0.02 – 1 micron particles. That’s almost 15% less effective
on kids than on adults.
Interestingly, the surgical masks and FFP2 (N92) masks also did
worse on children. This fits with a Smart Air test of children’s
masks in India that found lower effectiveness on children than
adults. The data suggests that it is harder to fit masks on children’s
faces.

Bottom Line on DIYing Your Own

Homemade Mask to Fight Viruses
Data shows that homemade masks made with a single layer of
cotton clothing, or a tea towel can remove around 50-60% of virus-
sized particles. This means they perform worse than surgical
masks and FFP2 (N95) masks. Wearing the homemade masks for 3
hours had no significant effect on the filtration efficiency.
DIY masks also work for children, however they are less effective
on kids than they are on adults.