NBC2 Experiment: How well do masks work?

[libertybele]

NBC2 Experiment: How well do masks work?

FORT MYERS, Fla. (WBBH) — As Coronavirus cases continue to surge in Florida, health experts, hospital leaders and government officials continue to give the same advice: wear a mask when out in public.

But how well do they actually work? The NBC2 Investigators went inside the Biology lab at Hodges University to find out.

EXPERIMENT #1: BACTERIA TO ILLUSTRATE THE SPREAD OF DROPLETS

Dr. Diana Schultz, the director of Health Sciences at the university, helped facilitate two experiments involving the use of masks. 

For the first experiment, two types of masks were used: a cloth mask and a disposable surgical mask.

Holding a Petri dish about one foot away from his face, NBC2 Investigator Evan Dean sneezed, coughed and talked in front of separate dishes. He did so while wearing the cloth mask, the surgical mask and also without a mask.

After the test was done, Dr. Schultz put the Petri plates inside an incubator to see if any bacteria would grow. The NBC2 Investigators returned to Hodges University 48 hours later to examine the dishes.

First, Dr. Schultz reviewed the dishes that Evan sneezed, coughed and talked on while wearing a cloth mask. She did not notice any bacteria.

“There is nothing. The plates are clear, you have a clear medium, never been exposed to anything,” she explained. “That (mask) worked really well.”

Next, she reviewed the plates from when Evan wore the surgical mask. They were mostly clean, save for one small bacteria colony from when Evan sneezed.

“We might see a tiny, tiny speck in one of them. But other than that they are pretty clean, it’s like they have not been exposed,” Dr. Schultz explained. “So again — the mask worked well.”

But what did the plates look like when Evan wasn’t wearing a mask?

“This was a different story,” Dr. Schultz explained. “Here we see a lot (of bacteria).”

There were two clear colonies of bacteria on the dish Evan talked on, and two small ones on the dish he coughed on.

But the dish he sneezed on without a mask showed the most dramatic results. There was bacteria covering most of the plate. .....

https://nbc-2.com/news/health/2020/07/23/nbc2-experiment-how-well-do-masks-work/