Face coverings and mask to minimise droplet dispersion and aerosolisation: a video case study.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended one- and two-layer cloth face covering against a three-ply surgical mask, we challenged the cloth covering against speaking, coughing and sneezing. The one-layer covering was made using ‘quick cut T-shirt face covering (no-sew method)’ and the two-layer covering was prepared using the sew method prescribed by CDC.1 To provide visual evidence of the efficacy of face coverings we used a tailored LED lighting system (GS Vitec MultiLED PT) along with a high-speed camera (nac MEMRECAM HX-7s) to capture the light scattered by droplets and aerosols expelled during speaking, coughing and sneezing while wearing different types of masks (figure 1 and online supplementary video). The video for speaking was captured at …