No Evidence Facemasks Suffocate to Death

Hind Khoudary

Health

17th September 2020

No Evidence Facemasks Suffocate to Death

No evidence that facemasks suffocate to death(Screenshot).

The Claim

A 50-year-old man died from suffocation after wearing a mask.

News posted on

Emerging story

Early September, a claim that a man wearing a facemask suffocated to death in Ogun was circulating. Social media users claimed that a 50-year-old man, Solomon Ede aka Baba Rita, is dead after his lifeless body was found face down with his face mask, in Alako, Abeokuta, Ogun State. Users also claimed that the man was always in the habit of wearing his face mask in order to protect himself against the Covid-19 but accidentally slept with it on Friday, August 28, 2020, after getting drunk.

The claim was shared with two pictures of the dead man on the ground wearing a mask.
The claim was spread on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Misbar’s Analysis

Can face masks suffocate to death?
Misbar's investigation didn't find any evidence to support that the circulating claim is true. We didn't find the circulating claim reported by any credible source website.
We searched for a person called Solomon Ede aka Baba Rita, but we didn't find anything. We searched for the claim in Oguns local news but we also didn't find anything. According to the US National Library of Medicine, the effects of wearing a mask concluded that in general, increased physical activity leads to more oxygen demand at our tissue level; hence, there could be a less efficient exchange of airflow.