Aerosol filtering efficiency of respiratory face masks used during the COVID-19 pandemic

  1. Glykeria Loupa
  2. Dimitra Karali
  3. Spyridon Rapsomanikis

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Abstract

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, effected the imposition of personal protection measures in a large number of countries. The use of commercially available personal face masks was widely accepted as such a protective measure. Since the quality of the face masks scanned the spectrum from surgical to the home made fabric ones, it was considered appropriate to experimentally establish their effectiveness for stopping aerosol in entering the respiratory system of the bearer. Presently, only eight masks were tested with polydisperse indoor air. Their effectiveness was examined for aerosol of aerodynamic diameters of 0.006 μm to 10 μm. Of these masks, only two were effective for the whole range of aerosol. Cloth masks were found to be ineffective for the assigned task.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.16.20155119: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.07.16.20155119v1 on medRxiv