Rapid and Low-Cost Method to Determine the Efficacy of Facemasks in Preventing the Spread of COVID-19

 

    The purpose of this study is to develop a rapid and low-cost method to determine the efficacy of facemasks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.  The coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 81 million people and killed over 1.7 million people worldwide. Despite nationwide lockdowns, cases remain on an upward trend and deaths closely follow. Only a few vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna, and AstraZeneca) have shown to be effective in combating COVID-19 in its current state, and recent mutations such as Britain’s B117 and South Africa’s 501Y.V2 raise concerns about the long-term effectiveness of current vaccines Therefore, it is important to continue to innovate and develop other forms of prevention that directly target COVID-19’s modes of transmission.

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     COVID-19 is most frequently transmitted via small droplets that are ejected upon speaking, coughing, and sneezing. One of the most successful methods of reducing the transmission of COVID-19 is the use of masks in everyday life. Though it is proven that masks decrease the droplet emission from speaking/coughing and therefore reduce the likelihood of transmitting COVID-19, the efficacy of masks in terms of their ability to decrease transmission varies based on the type of mask (N95, surgical, cloth). With the plethora of homemade/cloth masks in use it is important to have a quick and easy method to evaluate an efficacy of the cloth masks and other mask alternatives. 

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     All the studies to evaluate the efficacy of facemasks involved either expensive equipment, long-term results-driven studies, biosafety fume hoods in laboratories, or well-trained scientists to conduct the experiments. This study prototypes the building of a low-cost machine to evaluate the efficacy of facemasks using a low power laser pointer source and a camera to record the light scattering of water droplets and subsequent video analysis to count and analyze water droplet emission. This study shows that not all facemasks are equal in terms of their performance to prevent the penetration of droplets. Material type and thickness of the material play a key role.