Please note a rapid evidence update on this topic was published in December 2020, which includes evidence published between July and November 2020. This report may be found here.

To inform national efforts in response to COVID-19, HIQA is developing evidence summaries to answer specific research questions posed by the National Public Health Emergency Team.

This summary answers the following question: What evidence is available to indicate that routine wearing of face masks by healthy persons in the community reduces the transmission of respiratory pathogens?