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Mainz (dpa) - According to a study, mouth and nose protection reduces the risk of corona infection by almost half - by an average of around 45 percent.
"That's 55 instead of 100 new infections," said Mainz economist Klaus Wilder, one of the authors of the study published in the journal "PNAS", of the German Press Agency.
"Or even more clearly: Instead of 20,000 new infections a day without masks, we would have around 38,000."
His conclusion: "Everyone should wear masks to protect themselves and others from infections."
Together with three other economists, he had investigated the Sonderweg Jena and compared it with data from similar German cities.
In the Thuringian city, protective masks - accompanied by a publicity campaign - were introduced on April 6th, around three weeks earlier than in most other German districts and cities.
"That was an extreme stroke of luck that one would wish for much more often in order to be able to look at infection channels in reality," said Wilder.
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The scientists compared Jena with cities like Trier, Darmstadt, Cloppenburg and Rostock.
There, the infection rate, population density, average age, proportion of senior citizens and the availability of doctors and pharmacies were similar to those in Jena.
"We looked at what was happening in Jena and the comparison regions three weeks after the introduction of the mask requirement."
In order to exclude further effects, the scientists considered other regulations in Germany during this time.
"There were no changes to ordinances in Jena and Thuringia eight to twelve days before and after April 6," said Wilder.
“That made it clear that we had identified the effect of masks.
We cannot completely rule out other changes in behavior due to signal effects. "
One such signal effect would be that people generally behave more cautiously in the presence of masks.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201212-99-664199 / 2
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Study in "PNAS"
Homepage Klaus Waeler