Image by Magnus Mertens in Wikipedia The New York Times published an article looking into this very question on Nov 11, 2016. However, the provided answer ("possibly") was incomplete. In essence, the question of whether mouth-breathing decreases risk of viral infections is based on the idea that contagious viruses spread via the nose by inhaling coughed/sneezed out water droplets infected with viral contagions. Unfortunately, such viruses can also be spread if such droplets …