Read the full article "Why we need to upgrade our masks"; an article from The Scientific American.
The Mask Nerd’s top picks can be found in this video. In general, he recommends KN95s made by Chinese company Powecom and others, a variety of KF94s such as the Bluna FaceFit and N95s made by reputable brands such as 3M, Moldex or Honeywell. All of these masks had close to 99 percent filtration efficiencies and fairly low pressure drops in Collins’s setup. (For comparison, he found that a surgical mask alone had between about 50 and 75 percent filtration efficiency, depending on the fit, and a good cloth mask had about 70 percent.) But when choosing the best mask, comfort should be a deciding factor, he says. Not everyone needs to wear an N95.
“To me, the minimum I want to see people wear is a KN95 or KF94 with the Delta variant,” Collins says. “I don’t think surgical masks are good enough anymore, and we should’ve gotten rid of cloth masks last summer—they’re not even in the spectrum” of good filtration. (To be clear, some studies have found that surgical and cloth masks can provide at least some protection against COVID. A recent large, randomized study in Bangladesh found that surgical masks significantly lowered the risk of infection; cloth masks did not have a measurable benefit, although other studies suggest they provide some protection.)
