Plexiglass shields are everywhere, but it’s not clear how much they help

Businesses and workplaces have pointed to plexiglass dividers as one tool they are using to keep people safe against the spread of the virus, according to a CNN report. But it’s important to know there’s little data to support their effectiveness, and even if there were, the barriers have their limits, according to epidemiologists and aerosol scientists, who study airborne transmission of the virus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has offered guidance to workplaces to “install physical barriers, such as clear plastic sneeze guards, where feasible” as a way to “reduce exposure to hazards,” and OSHA has issued similar guidance.

Plexiglass shields can in theory protect workers against large respiratory droplets that spread if someone sneezes or coughs next to them, say epidemiologists, environmental engineers and aerosol scientists. Coronavirus is thought to spread from person to person “mainly through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks,” according to the CDC.

But those benefits haven’t been proven, according to Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University. She says there have not been any studies that examined how effective plexiglass barriers are at blocking large droplets.

Moreover, the bigger problem is that even if they do, that’s not the only way that the coronavirus spreads. The CDC recently released new guidelines saying that the coronavirus can spread through aerosols — tiny particles containing the virus that float in the air and can travel beyond six feet — that are released when people breathe, talk or sneeze.

Most droplets people release when they talk or breathe are in a “size range that will flow past the barrier,” said Pratim Biswas, an aerosol scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

The dividers “do not address all possible modes of transmission, such as aerosol transmission, or fully protect anyone from Covid-19,” the University of Washington’s Environmental Health and Safety Department said in a July review of the benefits and limitations of plexiglass barriers at campus facilities.

The National Restaurant Association said in a statement that plexiglass shields and barriers are a tool that “when combined with other best practices — like face coverings, appropriate social distancing, and handwashing — provide an additional level of safety.”