Health & Safety Brief: COVID-19 and Masks BLUF: Study finds wearing face masks to be associated with an increased risk of COVID-19 infection. A peer reviewed study published in the Epidemiology and Infection journal found that people who "almost always or always” wore face masks were more likely to test positive for COVID-19. Those who wore masks had a 4% to 40% higher incidence of contracting the virus compared to those that didn't (based on varying factors). The study also noted that the Cochrane review on "the effect of physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses stated that 'Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of laboratory‐confirmed influenza/SARS‐CoV‐2 compared to not wearing mask'". However, researchers warned  that "caution is imperative when interpreting the results from this and other observational studies on the relationship between mask-wearing and infection risk. Recommendations to wear face masks in the community are largely informed by low certainty evidence from observational studies." In summary the findings "suggest that wearing a face mask may be associated with an increased risk of infection." https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/0525AD535D10FDCDF0C52603B50E7A1E/S0950268823001826a.pdf/association-between-face-mask-use-and-risk-of-sars-cov-2-infection-cross-sectional-study.pdf