Dr. Howard Smith Oncall

  Vidcast:  https://youtu.be/R44bfNmIRNo   When students in fully-open schools wear effective masks, the incidence of hospitalization of all in a community may be reduced by as much as 71%.  This the conclusion of a North Carolina study that employs a computer model using accumulated state data.  The simulation begins in July, 2021 with Delta CoVid predominant and predicts expected deaths and hospitalizations over the following year.   With schools fully open and students wearing masks with 70% filtration effectiveness, the expected rate of new CoVid infections in the community drops by an average of 36%.   Masks with only 50% filtration only reduce the infections by 23%.  Infection reduction is greatest for the school-aged, but there is a substantial reduction in hospitalizations and CoVid deaths for their parents and grandparents too.   If the students were to wear KN95 or N95 masks in school, the reduction of serious and life-threatening CoVid cases would be even more substantial.   https://www.medrxiv.or