Israeli mask 99.95% protective against Delta variant, European lab says
The Israeli mask company Sonovia has released a report from a leading Italian textile-testing laboratory showing that its fabric eliminates the COVID-19 Delta variant particles with over 99.95% effectiveness.
Specifically, the masks were tested by VisMederi Textyle, the same lab that reported earlier that the unique fabric, which is coated in zinc nanoparticles, also protects against the British variant of COVID-19 and H1N1, otherwise known as swine flu.
The lab is next expected to test the fabric against the Mu strain, which carries several mutations to the spike gene and is labeled a “variant of interest” by the World Health Organization, said Sonovia chief technology officer Liat Goldhammer-Steinberg.
The Mu strain has not yet entered Israel, according to any official reports, but Health Ministry officials have warned of its potential negative impact.
Prof. Amos Adler, director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at Tel Aviv University, with whom the company consults, had said in the past that “COVID-19 variants might have different epidemiological or immunological properties that are the result of point mutations in critical areas of the receptor binding domain. Still, their overall structure and biophysical properties of the virus are almost identical. Hence, the antiviral effect exerted by the Sonovia-treated fabrics is expected to be present in all COVID-19 variants.”