(CNN) – This is the debate that is heard around the world: should or should not wear a mask during the pandemic of the new coronavirus?
While the World Health Organization (WHO) upheld, on Monday, its recommendation to only wear a face mask if someone is sick or cares for someone who is sick, a growing number of other health experts argue that people should wear masks to help prevent the spread of the virus.
“We are not going to wear masks forever, but it could be for a short period of time after we get going again. I could see something like this happen for a period of time, ”President Trump said Monday during a briefing at the White House.
A source close to the White House coronavirus task force told CNN that the idea of asking Americans to wear face masks for a period of time in the pandemic is likely under “serious discussion.” And The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is seriously considering changing the guidelines when it comes to the use of protective masks by the public in general.
Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Safety, wrote in a Twitter thread Sunday that “members of the general public should wear non-medical cloth masks when they go out in public, in an additional social effort to stop the spread of the virus. ”
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), also wrote in a Twitter post on Sunday that a CDC recommendation for consumers is that “use Cotton masks (with guidelines on how to create these products from household items) can improve safety and reduce spread and not strain the hospital supply chain. ”
WHO and CDC experts have long argued that people who are not sick or care for someone who is sick should leave face masks in the medical supply chain for healthcare workers who need it most.
Currently, the CDC recommends that if you are not sick, “you don’t need to wear a face mask unless you are caring for someone who is sick.” However, in China, where the pandemic began, the Chinese CDC has recommended “wear a mask when going out.”
Some experts who have advocated that people wear masks have pointed to previous research showing the effectiveness of masks against the spread of influenza and early research on covid-19.
A study published in the Journal of Hospital Infection in 2013 found that surgical masks could help reduce exposure to infectious influenza virus in the air. Preliminary data on how the virus shed from 13 covid-19 patients at the University of Nebraska Medical Center support “the use of airborne isolation precautions,” such as masks. The first data is currently not published in a peer-reviewed journal.
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