What if masks acted to reduce severity of COVID-19 infection for the WEARER, fostering immunity like a vaccine and allowing a full societal reopening?

Dr. Monica Gandhi is a UCSF professor of Medicine in the division of HIV, infectious diseases, and global medicine. She and her colleagues recently proposed just such a theory in the New England Journal of Medicine. In this fantastic interview she outlines the emerging data in support of the idea that masks may do more than we think.

Here’s a NY Times piece about her proposal, and here’s a paper she co-authored in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

And here’s my piece on masks that summarizes some of Dr. Gandhi’s work.

Here’s the full video and transcript.