As thick smoke from Canadian wildfires blankets much of the Northeast, many people are once again donning masks -- but which is best to protect against the tiny particulates in wildfire smoke?

Surgical masks can ward off COVID-19 just as well as N95s for healthcare workers exposed to patients infected with that virus, a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests. To report that ...

Surgical masks are not inferior to N95 masks for health-care workers providing routine COVID-19 care, study finds. ScienceDaily . Retrieved April 11, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com / releases ...

Wearing a mask is one way to reduce the spread of COVID-19. There are many types, including surgical masks, cloth masks, and respirators. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, usually ...

But a post on social media claims the type of mask that many wear to prevent the spread of the virus is ineffective. "I'm a surgeon. Surgical-style masks keep droplets containing bacteria ...

However, evidence emerged early on in the pandemic that cloth masks and standard surgical masks were not very effective, because they allowed viral particles to leak out (and in). The SARS-CoV-2 ...

The update states that cloth face coverings offer the least protection from the coronavirus compared with surgical masks or N95-style masks. Christian L’Orange is a mechanical engineer who has ...

As the Springfield-Greene County Health Department urges upgrading from a cloth to a surgical mask, the health department is making available 50,000 free surgical masks for Greene County residents.

For such particles, a cloth or surgical mask is an efficient form of source control to protect others from virus emitted by the wearer. Now it’s understood the virus is airborne. Virus-laden ...

Health officials recommend not only wearing a mask, but a surgical mask instead of a cloth one. “They keep your droplets to yourself. They don’t necessarily provide great respiratory ...