Wearing a mask could protect you from COVID-19 in more ways than you think
A new paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, puts forth the idea that universal masking may do more than reduce the transmission rate of SARS-CoV-2. It may, the authors propose, also result in greater immunity and fewer severe cases of the disease. (Pexels/)SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is entirely new to infectious disease researchers and other public health scientists. To combat it, scientists have sifted through centuries of literature about how the world coped with past pandemics. A new opinion paper assesses one way in which we might be able to learn from our encounters with smallpox.The paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, puts forth the idea that universal masking may do more than reduce the transmission rate of SARS-CoV-2. It may, the authors propose, also result in greater immunity and fewer severe cases of the disease.Specifically, the commentary discusses the theory of...