As COVID-19 returns in Europe, a study offers a reminder that simple measures like the use of masks and hand washing help prevent the disease.
Wearing a mask cuts your risk of contracting COVID by more than half, according to a review of eight studies published in the British Medical Journal. The same goes for hand washing. Physical distancing, meanwhile, reduces risk by a quarter.
The findings come amid evidence that vaccination efforts weren’t enough to prevent a resurgence as temperatures drop and people crowd indoors, forcing countries like Austria and the Netherlands to introduce restrictions. .
“Greater control of COVID-19 is likely to depend not only on high vaccination coverage and its effectiveness, but also on continued adherence to effective and sustainable public health measuresAuthors including Stella Talic, the study’s principal investigator and an epidemiologist at Monash University in Melbourne, said in the study.
Difficulty finding the truth
Scientists had a difficult time evaluating public health measures and said they could not evaluate other efforts such as quarantines and school closings because the studies were too disparate. They called for more research, saying their findings were limited by a lack of reliable and comparable data.
An accompanying editorial in the BMJ said that funding for public health measures represents only 4% of global COVID research.
“Considering the central importance of social and public health measures to control the pandemic, the uncertainties and controversies surrounding its effects, and the immense research effort that is being carried out in the development of vaccines and medicines, this lack of investment in public health measures is puzzling”Said Paul Glasziou, director of the Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare at Bond University in Australia, in the editorial with scientists from the UK and Norway.
Glasziou and his colleagues also sought to explain the researchers’ handwashing finding, a surprising conclusion considering that coronavirus transmission is primarily through the air. The results may reflect how people who wash their hands frequently tend to take other measures as well.
“Hand washing is likely a marker of several protective behaviors, such as avoiding crowds, distancing, and wearing masks”They said.
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