--- title: Why Masks Still Matter description: Masks work against not only COVID-19 but also the flu, RSV, and other respiratory viruses. We should still be using them canonical: https://time.com/6232830/why-masks-still-matter-covid-19/ author: Abraar Karan article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-11-14T12:00:58.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:54.198Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why Masks Still Matter og:description: Masks work against not only COVID-19 but also the flu, RSV, and other respiratory viruses. We should still be using them og:url: https://time.com/6232830/why-masks-still-matter-covid-19/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc389872d55d5f4b/698a37e316d88465abc3b4c3/GettyImages-1382447275.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: 3M Consumer N95 Respirators og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why Masks Still Matter twitter:description: Masks work against not only COVID-19 but also the flu, RSV, and other respiratory viruses. We should still be using them twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltbc389872d55d5f4b/698a37e316d88465abc3b4c3/GettyImages-1382447275.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Masks Still Matter > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Inside TIME: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Inside TIME is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. A closer look at TIME's latest cover and our most compelling stories. Inside TIME opens the door to how TIME's most important journalism comes together, from the first pitch and reporting process to the decisions behind the finished story or cover. Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs takes readers inside the newsroom, revealing the journalists, ideas and editorial choices behind the stories shaping the global conversation. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer [Watch (HLS stream): The Race to Make a Vaccine for Breast Cancer](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/W5jcvwLu.m3u8) (8:09)  _Published 2022-10-05. Scientists believe there is a future in which women can be vaccinated against breast cancer._ by [Abraar Karan](https://time.com/author/abraar-karan/) and [Gavin Yamey](https://time.com/author/gavin-yamey/) Nov 14, 2022 12:00 PM UTC  The 3M™ Aura™ Particulate Respirator 9205+, N95\. This respirator is NIOSH approved for at least 95 percent filtration efficiency against certain non-oil based particles. The 3M™ Aura™ Particulate Respirator 9205+, N95\. This respirator is NIOSH approved for at least 95 percent filtration efficiency against certain non-oil based particles. Cindy Ord-Getty Images by [Abraar Karan](https://time.com/author/abraar-karan/) and [Gavin Yamey](https://time.com/author/gavin-yamey/) Nov 14, 2022 12:00 PM UTC During the COVID-19 pandemic, masks were weaponized for partisan purposes. “The politicization of mask use,” [says](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/05/omicron-surge-covid-variant-measures) William Hanage, infectious disease epidemiologist at Harvard University, “makes as much sense as politicizing gravity.” Masks are simply a tool—a protective barrier—that can help to reduce the spread of respiratory infections, just as condoms are a barrier that can reduce the spread of sexually transmitted infections. And as we head into winter, with rising rates of [multiple respiratory viruses](https://time.com/6224268/severe-flu-season-rsv/), including flu, [RSV](https://time.com/6226678/rsv-virus-kids-babies-symptoms/), and new coronavirus variants, masks could help all Americans to avoid getting sick. Mask use is on the decline in the United States. Recent public polling [shows](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index) that nearly two thirds of Americans never or rarely wear a mask outside their homes, a sharp rise from just a quarter during the height of the Omicron wave in January 2022\. There are many reasons for the decline in masking. These include pandemic fatigue, a justified [perception](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/axios-ipsos-coronavirus-index) that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us (there has been a [sustained decline](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html) in daily COVID-19 deaths), widespread COVID-19 vaccination ([80% of Americans](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-people-vaccinated-covid?country=~USA) have now had at least one vaccine dose), reduced federal and state efforts to provide free high quality masks to the public, and the removal of mask mandates. Despite these trends, it is important for the public to know that community masking can help prevent the spread of a range of respiratory infections. The Centers for Disease Control [notes](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm) that flu hospitalization rates are higher than usual for the time of year, an additional impetus to promote mask use. A useful analogy is to think of masks like umbrellas, [says](https://theconversation.com/living-with-covid-how-treating-masks-like-umbrellas-could-help-us-weather-future-pandemic-threats-187377) Simon Nicholas Williams, a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Swansea in Wales. When it’s raining or the forecast is for rain, we take an umbrella out with us. “But just as there’s no need to carry an umbrella with us when it’s sunny,” he says, “we needn’t be expected to wear masks all the time.” --- ### More from TIME --- Respiratory disease transmission can be divided [broadly](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2021.0049) into spread by droplets, which are larger than 5 microns and fall quickly to the ground, and aerosols, which are smaller than 5 microns and can float in the air for hours as well as be inhaled. The science of such transmission suggests that all viruses and bacteria that travel by these routes should similarly be stopped by mitigation measures that broadly target these routes—including high quality masks such as [N95](https://time.com/6139169/n95-best-mask-omicron-covid-19/) or KN95s that block both droplets and aerosols. **_Read More:_** [**_Universal Masking in Schools Works. New Data Shows How Well_**](https://time.com/6231516/universal-masking-in-school-works-new-data-shows-how-well/) The data on the efficacy of masks to prevent respiratory infections dates back to well before COVID-19\. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, studies showed that the use of face masks probably reduced transmission. A [study](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12737864/) on SARS transmission from five Hong Kong hospitals, for example, in which staff were exposed to infected patients found that staff who reported mask use were less likely to be infected. Even during SARS, though, there were signs that upgrading masks could be important. An [outbreak](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/0003-4819-139-7-200310070-00008?rfr%5Fdat=cr%5Fpub++0pubmed&url%5Fver=Z39.88-2003&rfr%5Fid=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org) from a Hong Kong hospital in which unidentified cases transmitted to healthcare workers who were only wearing surgical masks flagged the relevance of high quality masks such as N95s. Data on tuberculosis transmission in healthcare settings is also informative. Irregular use of N95 respirators among Brazilian healthcare workers was [associated](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29267691/) with a higher risk of latent tuberculosis (whereby someone is harboring the bacteria, but it is in a dormant state with a risk of becoming active later on). Furthermore, other airborne pathogens, such as a bacterium called Coxiella burnetti, which passes from animals to humans and causes the illness Q fever, have caused [outbreaks](https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0242%5Farticle) that were stopped directly with the use of N95s. During the COVID-19 pandemic, use of N95 masks had the added benefit of reducing transmission of other airborne pathogens, [including tuberculosis](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35371475/). The type of mask that is sufficient depends on the pathogen in question and whether it transmits more effectively by the airborne route, or by larger respiratory droplets. For instance, studies looking into RSV found that while [detectable in aerosols](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27740722/), this route was unlikely to be efficient, meaning N95-caliber masks aren’t required. However, given we are now faced with a concurrent increase in multiple respiratory viruses at once—including flu, RSV, and COVID-19—masks that block both routes are preferable. Currently, the CDC [does not list masks](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/prevention.htm) under their guidance to Americans for how to prevent flu. And data has been mixed in the past with regard to what type of mask would truly be needed. A [randomized trial](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31479137/) examining whether use of N95 respirators versus medical masks in preventing influenza among healthcare workers found no significant difference. However, the [study](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2749198) was primarily conducted in outpatient clinic settings, which are notably different than within a hospital, or within a crowded public setting for longer periods of time. In another randomized trial, use of N95 masks was [associated with](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23413265/) significantly lower rates of respiratory illness, and lower rates of bacterial colonization of the respiratory tract. Furthermore, COVID-19 mitigation efforts of the past two seasons very likely contributed to exceptionally low flu transmission, as [noted](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6937a6.htm) by the CDC. Given that flu is less transmissible than COVID-19, the [level of community masking](https://twitter.com/EpiEllie/status/1589258192760213506) needed to blunt transmission would likely be lower and more easily achievable. With limited yet mixed data, we would be wise to heed caution and err on the side of masking in high risk, indoor crowded public settings where these diseases spread most easily. What the COVID-19 pandemic has made clear is that we need more robust data to understand many aspects of public masking, including how effective masks will be in preventing other respiratory viruses. While the efficacy of masking differs by what type of mask and material is used, as well as mask fit, it is also affected by when and where masks are used, and how consistently. In healthcare settings, we as physicians consistently use N95 respirators in rooms of patients with airborne diseases because we know they reduce inhalation of infectious aerosols, which reduces the chance that we get sick. This basic principle holds true whether in a hospital room, or in a crowded bus or grocery store. Getting vaccinated against flu and COVID-19 is the most important step you can take to prevent severe illness from these conditions. Unfortunately, there is no licensed RSV vaccine, though there is a candidate vaccine for infants that is [showing](https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/articles/rsv-explained-four-things-to-know-about-this-surging-virus) promising results. Even with the vaccines that we do have, while we will continue to be affected by respiratory viruses every year, the COVID-19 pandemic should remind us that we have a means to reduce spread through using high quality masks. Masks will likely help reduce the spread of multiple viruses and some bacteria—and while more data must be generated to understand how best to improve our community level efforts, we have enough already to tell us to mask up this season. ## Transcript Vaccines are often called The Miracle of modern medicine for their ability to Target the immune system against disease-causing, viruses and bacteria. Since they work against infectious diseases, why not against other conditions that have long plagued Humanity like cancer. To say we're working to develop a vaccine to prevent Cancers and individuals for the rest of your life. It sounds like Star Wars but it's not a concept that's totally unchartered me vaccines against human papillomavirus which is causative agent in certain types of human cancers. Work to prevent cancer in those individuals who get vaccinated and so are we? We no longer is nikoli more about the immune system in the last 20 years in the face of cancer. Studies and cancer. And now it's covid that we can bring this knowledge to this big goal of using a new system to prevent all types of cancers and and do so with humility and optimize the immune response against cancer by training cells to recognize tumors as foreign. Once that happens in breast cancer, it may be possible to not only prevent Prince's in people who have already had cancer, but to even prevent it in the first place, I was diagnosed in 1987 and I wasn't treated much differently from what the treatments or today. Oh, wow. Yes, there's a lot of focus on immunotherapy and that's exciting. It's exciting from a research perspective but it hasn't really made a difference in women's lives. Yet, we believe that a vaccine approach is certainly the key and primary prevention or preventing people from getting breast cancer to begin with because we believe that that is the future, that that is one of the areas that we should be focusing on now. We believe not only will it save lives, but it will also be less toxic than existing Therapies. You know, technologies that have have been developed over the past five to ten years. Are number one, immune checkpoint Inhibitors. So, immune checkpoint Inhibitors is a form of therapy that has been you know now approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in targeting a number of different cancers were, we had has been effective lasso in in certain tumors. And so, the reason that vaccines don't work against metastatic deposits of tumor is because the tumors themselves. Throw up a number of Walls that ultimately prevents the immune response from acting and killing the tumor. So the whole idea just like an infectious disease, vaccine used to identify what's foreign in the tumor as much as possible and to really craft A vaccine that targets what's foreign because that's really word. You know we're going to see the power of the immune response and in shrinking or preventing a cancer is having multiple targets within the tumor. But also having them be very foreign at the Mayo. Clinic Newton has developed a vaccine targeting, a very early form of breast cancer called ductal carcinoma inside you or DC, is he is working with his colleague dr. Amy degnan to test that vaccine experts, have debated in recent years, whether dcis is actually cancer since it involves lesions that remain in the ducts of the breast tissue and don't spread throughout the breast as other forms of breast cancer. Do about 50 1,000 women. A year are diagnosed with DC is in the US and some of those cases will become cancerous. Although doctors, can't predict which one As a result many women with the condition up to have radiation and surgery to remove the lesions to avoid the risk of developing cancer. if the immune system could be trained to attack tcis instead that would potentially help women to avoid the more invasive treatments, which some experts believe might be over treating their condition We are interested in pushing forward, you know, toward a goal of vaccines for breast cancer prevention. And so one strategy to do that is to then evaluate a vaccine that we found was safe and women who had invasive cancer and apply it to women who don't have invasive cancer yet who have this dcis and evaluate what kind of immune response we see in those women. And one of the things that were specifically interested in this study to see is what kind of response do we see in the breast tissue after this vaccine is given, can we find evidence that the immune system is reacting to the vaccine and potentially, you know, trying to clear out these cancer cells in the breast tissue. So, in this trial, we give the vaccine for several doses of the vaccine before surgery, and women who have dcis. And then at the time of We're removing their dcis as we would not normally to treat it, but we're also able to then investigate the breast tissue and the area of DCs and and see what is happening with the immune response there after the vaccine, the team at the Abramson Cancer Center, at Penn Medicine, is studying a different approach to a breast cancer vaccine. They are currently a rolling about 16th bull who have been diagnosed with cancer and who have the genetic mutations, bcra one or bcra to which put them at higher risk of developing breast cancer to see if vaccinating them will lower their chance of recurrence. The researchers also had to study a couple dozen people with the genetic risk, but who has not yet been diagnosed with cancer to see if the vaccine could lower their risk of ever developing the disease. It's a, it's a game changer and we recognize that we have a ways to go. But right now, if you're a 25 year old woman who has undergone genetic testing and is told that you have a safe for me to yishun, you're talkin about raining for the rest of your life for your breasts or deciding to do a bilateral, mastectomy have your breasts removed and at this point we had no effective screening for ovarian cancer. And so we strongly recommend that individuals have their ovaries removed between ages, 35 and 44 a beer, signaling carrier, putting them into early menopause. And with all the attendant Dallas ring consequence that we really have not had great options apart from surgical options. And, you know, we're working on many different types of strategies to try alternative National the natural history. But this concept of immune interception being able to use the immune system to change the natural history for these individual is so critical. We are probably at the end of the era of using cancer, vaccines with great hope in a patient, whose party been treated with everything in the tumor is still Advanced to using these vaccines and all our new knowledge in patients, who are at risk for relapse or individuals who are simply a high risk for cancer and we want to prevent so prevention. And survivorship is what cancers going to be about him. 10 years, I think vaccines will play a part in ensuring ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6232830/why-masks-still-matter-covid-19/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6232830/why-masks-still-matter-covid-19/"},"headline":"Why Masks Still Matter","datePublished":"2022-11-14T12:00:58.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:54.198Z","description":"Masks work against not only COVID-19 but also the flu, RSV, and other respiratory viruses. 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