People affected by the pandemic in Bangladesh eat food distributed by Mehmankhana, a nonprofit organization, on July 26. (Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)

The authors of a study based on an enormous randomized research project in Bangladesh say their results offer the best evidence yet that widespread wearing of surgical masks can limit the spread of the coronavirus in communities.

The preprint paper, which tracked more than 340,000 adults across 600 villages in rural Bangladesh, is by far the largest randomized study on the effectiveness of masks at limiting the spread of coronavirus infections.