Why The West Is Ditching Cloth Masks, Nose Swabs

New Covid Variants Can Spread Faster, So We Will Need Better Masks To Stop Them. Meanwhile, Testing Kits Also Need A Rethink

- Abhilash [e-mail]

On his last day in office, Robert Redfield, chief of America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under Donald Trump, was asked how he had been keeping himself safe on flights without getting vaccinated. “You know, I believe if I wear my mask, wash my hands and social distance, I can fly safely,” Redfield told The New York Times.

We seem to have forgotten masks since the results of vaccine trials started coming out in early-November, but they remain just as important for stopping Covid as they were a year ago. In fact, they might be more important now because of the new risk from mutant viruses that spread faster, evade antibodies in people who have already had Covid, and also make vaccines less effective.

You can gauge how contagious these viruses are from the way the UK variant has spread in Denmark despite a strict lockdown. In the last week of December, the UK variant was found in only 2.4% of Danish samples, but by the third week of January its share had increased to 12.1%.

Meanwhile, the Brazil variant has surfaced in Germany and the US, and the South African variant has sent vaccine makers back to the lab. American firm Moderna announced on Monday it will make a booster dose of its mRNA vaccine based on the South African variant.

Better Masks Needed