US reported more than 61,000 cases Tuesday
The science shows face masks work both to protect the wearer and to protect others from coronavirus, and everyone needs to wear one around others in public, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.
Even cloth face masks help enough to be worthwhile, three top CDC officials said in a commentary published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“While community use of face coverings has increased substantially, particularly in jurisdictions with mandatory orders, resistance continues,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC’s chief medical officer Dr. John Brooks and Deputy Director for Infectious Diseases Dr. Jay Butler said in a joint editorial.
There is “ample evidence” that people who have no symptoms and may not realize they are infected may be driving the ongoing surge in infections, they wrote.
Redfield has been increasingly vocal about his support for the use of face masks, and the CDC published details on Tuesday of a study that found two hairdressers in Springfield, Missouri, who were infected with coronavirus did not infect any of 139 clients they worked with, probably because they wore face masks.
“Covering mouths and noses with filtering materials serves two purposes: personal protection against inhalation of harmful pathogens and particulates, and source control to prevent exposing others to infectious microbes that may be expelled during respiration,” the three officials wrote.
Even homemade, cloth masks help. Face coverings aren’t needed all the time — for instance, people driving or walking alone in uncrowded spaces are probably safe without one.
“But when individuals choose to go out or must be close to others in public, a cloth face covering can help reduce the spread of COVID-19 from asymptomatic individuals or others.”
