Chennai: A new modelling of Covid-19 in the country has showed widespread use of masks and maintaining social distancing measures can prevent at least 200,000 coronavirus disease-related deaths by 1 December.
The new data has underlined the critical need for the public to comply with the use of face masks, maintain social distancing norms and other Covid-19 guidelines issued by the government to prevent the spread of the contagion.
Dr Christopher Murray from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, which has done the modelling of the viral outbreak, said, “Meta analysis of individual studies has shown that masks can reduce disease transmission by 40% for individuals and in aggregate at population level you can see results for India. The use of masks doesn’t impede any economic activity. Besides, it’s extremely cost-effective.”
He added: “The masks don’t need to be high-end ones such as N-95. Cloth masks will do just fine.”