Story at a glance
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said Tuesday the outbreak could be controlled in four to eight weeks if “we could get everybody to wear a mask right now.”
- He praised President Trump’s decision this weekend to wear a mask.
- The CDC recommends the use of masks or cloth facial coverings when it is not possible to stay at least 6 feet away from others.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said Tuesday that if everyone in the U.S. wore a mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus, the pandemic could be under control within weeks.
“If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really think over the next four, six, eight weeks we could bring this epidemic under control,” Redfield said during a livestreamed interview with Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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“I am heartened to see more and more people now. I’m glad to see the president wear a mask this weekend — the vice president. Clearly in their situation, you can easily justify they don’t need to because of all the testing around them and they know they’re not infected. But we need them to set the example,” Redfield said.
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The CDC recommends the use of masks or cloth facial coverings when it is not possible to stay at least 6 feet away from others. Studies have shown the use of face coverings can slow the spread of COVID-19 because it helps prevent coronavirus carriers who do not know they have the disease from spreading it to others.
The CDC Tuesday released a new study that said state leaders should consider requiring face coverings to curb the transmission of the virus. The study looked at two Missouri hair stylists who were COVID-19 positive and wore masks but did not pass it on to their clients, who also wore face coverings.
“A policy mandating the use of face coverings was likely a contributing factor in preventing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 during the close-contact interactions between stylists and clients in salon A,” the researchers wrote. “Broader implementation of masking policies could mitigate the spread of infection in the general population.”
While there’s no national mask mandate, several states across the country have required residents to use masks while in public and when they are unable to social distance, as the coronavirus outbreak continues to worsen in various parts of the country.
Last week, the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) projected 208,255 COVID-19 deaths by Nov. 1. The IHME, however, said the number of deaths could be slashed to 162,909 if 95 percent of people in the U.S. wore masks in public.
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