Amid new research, US recommends face masks to stop virus spread
by Issam Ahmed
President Donald Trump on Friday recommended that Americans cover their faces with masks when outdoors, a policy U-turn following growing scientific research suggesting their widespread use can stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Trump told a White House briefing that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was urging people to wear face coverings like scarves or homemade cloth masks, but to keep medical-grade masks available for health workers.
“It’s going to be really a voluntary thing,” he underlined. “You don’t have to do it and I’m choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it and that’s okay.”
The about-face was widely expected after senior health officials told reporters the scientific evidence had evolved.
Speaking to Fox News on Friday, Anthony Fauci, head of infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, cited “recent information that the virus can actually be spread even when people just speak as opposed to coughing and sneezing.”
Days earlier, the CDC’s Robert Redfield said up to a quarter of people who are infected may be asymptomatic.
Taken together, the developments represent powerful arguments in favor of the widespread use of facial coverings.
Previously, the advice was that masks should only be used by sick people and their caregivers.
The new recommendations are in line with those made by France’s National Academy of Medicine on Friday, and by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio a day earlier.
The city has seen almost 1,000 of the US’s nearly 7,000 deaths.
But the message was undermined by the fact that none of the officials present at Friday’s briefing were following it.
Trump said he would not be wearing one “as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don’t know, it somehow, I don’t see it for myself.” (AFP)
