According to modelling conducted by Fugaku, the world’s fastest supercomputer, the disposable medical masks now almost ubiquitous on streets in many countries across the world constitute a far more effective barrier to respiratory droplets than cotton varieties, The Telegraph reports.
Cotton masks blocked just 80% of spray emitted when a person inside coughed, and the figure dropped to around 60% when smaller drops were analyzed. In contrast, the disposable masks studied blocked nearly all droplets and around 90% of smaller droplets, most of which escaped through the gaps around the edge of the mask.
Fugaku can perform more than 415 quadrillion computations a second.