A new study that examined the effects of mask-wearing on the spread of COVlD-l9 found that even partial adoption helps to limit the spread.

The study, led by researchers at Stanford Medicine and Yale University, was a large-scale, randomized trial using 350,000 people from 600 villages in rural Bangladesh. Those living in villages were assigned a number of interventions to promote the use of masks.

Researchers found that those living in the villages with such interventions were around 11% less likely to develop COVID-19 than those who did not. The effectiveness increased to nearly 35% for people over 60 years old, according to Stanford Medicine.

“Our study is the first controlled trial exploring whether facial masking prevent COVID-19 transmission at the community level,” said Ashley Styczynski, one of the lead authors and an infectious discase fellow at Stanford. “It’s notable that even though fewer than 50% of the people in the intervention villages wore masks in public places, we still saw a significant risk reduction in symptomatic COVID-19 in these communities, particularly in elderly people.”

“We saw an opportunity to better understand the effect of masks, which can be a very important way for people in low-resource areas to protect themselves while they wait for vaccines,” said Laura Kwong, a former postdoctoral scholar at Stanford and assistant professor at the University of California-Berkeley. “So we will collaborate with behavioral scientists, economists, public health experts and religious figures to design ways to promote mask use at a community level.”

In villages without these interventions, around 13% of people wore masks properly compared to 42% in villages with the guidance. Social distancing only slightly improved with 24. l% in the control villages versus 29.2% in the intervention villages.

【小题1】What does the underlined word “interventions” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Measures.

B．Presents.

C．Messages.

D．Souvenirs.

【小题2】What happened after guiding the use of masks in Bandladesh?

A．35% of the old began to wear masks.	B．It was hard for some to put on masks.
C．Less people suffered from COVID-19.	D．The old suffered from COVID-19 easily.

【小题3】What did Ashley Styczynski mainly want to express?

A．The first controlled trial.	B．COVID-19’s spread in the community.
C．Wearing masks in the public places.	D．The good effects of facial masking.

【小题4】What would Laura Kwong do according to the text?

A．Help to get more vaccines.	B．Encourage more to wear masks.
C．Persuade people to keep social distance.	D．Carry on another scientific experiment.