Some countries have been devastated by the novel coronavirus, and others have escaped lightly. Why the extreme differences? The main one is that countries that quickly resorted to widespread mask-wearing had far lower death rates and shorter outbreaks, a new study argues. The authors looked at coronavirus death rates in 198 countries, trying to see why some had painfully high death rates and others very low. “What we found was that of the big variables that you can control which influence mortality, one was wearing masks,” says Christopher Leffler of Virginia Commonwealth University, one...…Some countries have been devastated by the novel coronavirus, and others have escaped lightly. Why the extreme differences? The main one is that countries that quickly resorted to widespread mask-wearing had far lower death rates and shorter outbreaks, a new study argues. The authors looked at coronavirus death rates in 198 countries, trying to see why some had painfully high death rates and others very low. “What we found was that of the big variables that you can control which influence mortality, one was wearing masks,” says Christopher Leffler of Virginia Commonwealth University, one...WW…