To mask or not to mask: Modeling the potential for face mask use by the general public to curtail the COVID-19 pandemic

Steffen E. Eikenberry; Marina Mancuso; Enahoro Iboi; Tin Phan; Keenan Eikenberry; Yang Kuang; Eric Kostelich; Abba B. Gumel

From Figure 2 , we see that even 50% coverage with 50% effective masks roughly halves the effective disease transmission rate. Widespread adoption, say 80% coverage, of masks that are only 20% effective still reduces the effective transmission rate by about one-third. Figure 3 demonstrates the effect of mask coverage on peak hospitalizations, cumulative deaths, and equivalent β 0 values when either ϵ o = 0.2 and ϵ i = 0.8, or visa versa (and for simulated epidemics using either β 0 = 0.5 or 1.5 day −1 . These results suggest that, all else equal, the protection masks afford against acquiring infection (ϵ o ) is actually slightly more important than protection against transmitting infection (ϵ i ), although there is overall little meaningful asymmetry.