It’s starting to look like wearing a mask may not only reduce your chance of spreading the virus to others, but it might also reduce your chance of getting a severe case.
Outbreaks with higher mask-wearing seem to have higher rates of asymptomatic cases among positive tests, and lower death rates.
Speculation is that it might reduce the viral load you get so that you’re still infected & infectious, but not impacted as severely.
Masks offer much more protection against coronavirus than many think
The article is paywalled, but some of the interesting cases they point to include:
– an outbreak at a seafood plant in Oregon where employees had masks, and 95% of those infected were asymptomatic
– a cruise ship where all passengers & crew got masks, & 81% of those testing positive were asymptomatic
-death rates staying low even when cases have surged in places like southeast Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore & the Czech Republic
More research needed, of course!