Effectiveness of Face Coverings in Mitigating the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic has been one of the biggest public health challenges of the 21st century. Many prevalent measures have been taken to prevent its spread and protect the public. However, the use of face coverings as an effective preventive measure remains contentious. The goal of the current study is to evaluate the effectiveness of face coverings as a protective measure. We examined the effectiveness of face coverings between 1 April and 31 December 2020. This was accomplished by analyzing trends of daily new COVID-19 cases, cumulative confirmed cases, and cases per 100,000 people in different U.S. states, including the District of Columbia. The results indicated a sharp change in trends after face covering mandates. For the 32 states with face covering mandates, 63% and 66% exhibited a downward trend in confirmed cases within 21 and 28 days of implementation, respectively. We estimated that face covering mandates in the 32 states prevented approximately 78,571 and 109,703 cases within 21- and 28-day periods post face covering mandate, respectively. A statistically significant (p = 0.001) negative correlation (−0.54) was observed between the rate of cases and days since the adoption of a face covering mandate. We concluded that the use of face coverings can provide necessary protection if they are properly used

Relationship Between Cotton Varieties and Moisture Vapor Transport of Knitted Fabrics

Cotton offers next-to-skin comfort and hence is a preferred fiber for undergarments. There have been a number of studies on the effect of different fiber types, fabric structure, fabric finishes, etc. on the moisture vapor transport properties. However, there has been no report in the public domain on the relationship between cotton varieties on the moisture vapor transport characteristics of fabrics produced from them. The study reported in this paper focuses on the moisture vapor transport properties (MVTR) of cotton fabrics knitted from 31 different cotton fibers with different pedigrees grown over a three-year period in three major cotton growing regions of US, Southwest (Texas), Mid-South (Mississippi) and Southeast (Georgia). Results indicate that cotton varieties influence the MVTR of knitted fabrics produced from them. This study, for the first time has attempted to link varietal effects on the most important property of cotton—breathability quantified using MVTR. Preliminary analysis indicates a relationship between the basic sugar content such as verbascose of cotton and its moisture vapor transport. However this result has to be followed up with a thorough study

Crude Oil Sorption by Raw Cotton

Since the recent Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the need for environmentally friendly oil sorbents has intensified. This study deals with the sorption of crude oil by raw cotton, a biodegradable sorbent. To our best knowledge, the data related to crude oil sorption by unprocessed raw cotton and correlation with cotton characteristics such as micronaire, fineness, and maturity are unavailable. More importantly, our work quantifies the oil sorption (g/g) of low micronaire (immature) cotton. Results showed at the minimum level, low micronaire raw cotton has 30.5 g/g crude oil sorption capacity. Furthermore, the crude oil sorption capacity of low micronaire cotton was significantly higher than the sorption capacity of high micronaire cotton. Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET) surface area and environmental scanning electron microscopy analyses support the correlation between the quality characteristics of raw cotton and its oil sorption capacity. In contrast to synthetic sorbents, raw cotton with its high crude oil sorption capacity and positive environmental footprint make it an ecologically friendly sorbent for oil spill cleanups