Scientists are Preparing a Special Mask Capable of Destroying the New Coronavirus On Contact

The ongoing pandemic is facing a significant downfall according to the stats brought by worldometers.info. But even so, there are still cases of infected people emerging every day across the world. Surely nobody would say ‘no’ to treatment and a vaccine, but for the moment, humanity doesn’t have them.

But thankfully, there are plenty of ways we can protect ourselves from getting the terrifying virus. The methods are simple: washing our hands, practice social distancing, avoiding to go outside too often, and so on. But yet again, there could be one extra unique and efficient method to fight the virus.

Mask for destroying COVID-19 on contact

Dibakar Bhattacharyya is a chemical engineering professor and the director of the Center of Membrane Sciences at the University of Kentucky. He claims that he has an idea for a mask capable of capturing and deactivating the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease. It works by featuring enzymes that will attach to the protein spikes of the new coronavirus and separate them. The outcome is obvious: the virus is killed.

Dibakar Bhattacharyya declared:

The novel coronavirus is covered in club-shaped ‘s-protein’ spikes, which give it its crownlike, or coronal, appearance,

The protein spikes are also what allows the virus to enter host cells once in the body. This new membrane will include proteolytic enzymes that will attach to the protein spikes of the coronavirus and separate them, killing the virus.

But don’t get carried away just yet and forget about those rules of social distancing, staying home as possible, and regularly washing of the hands. It still takes a lot of time to finish and test the masks, if they will indeed be made. Bhattacharyya, the principal investigator of the research team involved, said it would take about six months for the whole thing to be finalised.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com