Yuen is one of the world’s leading corona researchers. And even if his latest study seems a bit strange, it underpins an early recommendation by the scientist: Surgical masks slow down the transmission of the corona viruses.
Hong Kong researchers have demonstrated on hamsters that contact masks can significantly reduce the contactless transmission of the coronavirus. The use of masks reduced the transmission rate by more than 60 percent, according to a study by the University of Hong Kong. Without a surgical mask, two thirds of the hamsters became infected within a week.
In the animals that got infected despite the mask, the virus infection was also less severe than in infections without a mask. For the study, hamsters infected with the coronavirus were placed next to a cage with healthy animals. Surgical masks were placed between the two cages.
It has become clear that masking by infected people, especially when they show no symptoms, “is much more important than anything else,” said study leader Yuen Kwok-yung, one of the world’s leading coronavirus experts. The microbiologist was one of the discoverers of the Sars virus in 2003 – a precursor to the Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus.
Yuen had advised the Hong Kong people to wear masks early on. At that time, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the health authorities in many countries still advised against the large-scale use of masks in public, so that protective equipment for health workers was not in short supply.
Four months after the first coronavirus infection appeared, Hong Kong has largely curbed the epidemic. In total, only around 1,000 residents of the city of 7.5 million people were infected with the virus, four patients died.
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