The debate of whether to wear a mask continues as more states see a surge in Coronavirus infections. A new experiment done by researcher Rich Davis shows how important it is to wear a mask using agar cultures. Davis tweeted that he had sung, sneezed, talked, and coughed into a petri dish with, and without a mask, he shared a picture and it was downright scary.
Davis set up several Petri dishes that showed the number of bacteria spread with and without a mask when a sneeze, conversation, singing a song, or cough happened. He then did the experiment again at a distance. The number of bacteria represented in the Petri dishes with no mask was enormous compared to the dishes with a mask, hence the need for a mask is necessary. Davis’ experiment was retweeted over 166,000 times and was “liked” over 280,000 times.
What does a mask do? Blocks respiratory droplets coming from your mouth and throat.
Two simple demos:
First, I sneezed, sang, talked & coughed toward an agar culture plate with or without a mask. Bacteria colonies show where droplets landed. A mask blocks virtually all of them. pic.twitter.com/ETUD9DFmgU
— Rich Davis, PhD, D(ABMM), MLS 🦠🔬🧫 (@richdavisphd) June 26, 2020
Comments are closed.