How the man behind the mask claimed his star scalp
On America’s west coast, a little-known data scientist watched from his living room, scarcely believing his eyes. Donald Trump, who had long sneered at face coverings, was finally sporting one, and in public. And, with that black US presidential seal-embossed mask, Jeremy Howard’s extraordinary mission had helped claim the most important scalp of all.
After a week in which the world – with the exception still of vast swathes of the US – embraced masks as a vital tool to fight coronavirus, Mr Howard’s almost accidental role in contributing to a shift in world opinion can be revealed as key. His supporters see him truly as the man behind the mask.
What did he do? Looking for a topic to speak about at a University of San Francisco data lecture in March, “on a whim”, he hit upon masks. He began to follow the data, collating everything he could find on face masks and their effectiveness in a pandemic.
The results, he says, were overwhelming. The message, stark: use masks, save lives. Every piece of data he found suggested masks could help prevent the virus’s spread.
Back then, only Asian countries wore masks. The US and UK warned against masks, saying not only that they did not help but also warning that public demand would hit already low supplies for front-line health workers.
Mr Howard put his lecture to his 1,000 students on YouTube.
The video went viral, with hundreds of thousands of views.
asked him to write an article on the topic. It was published on March 28 – five days after the UK and parts of the US went into lockdown – and so became the first post in English advocating universal mask wearing.
Experts quickly joined his movement. Scientists asked him to amplify research which had been kept off radar or even suppressed. Then senators got in touch. Then politicians and news organisations from abroad, such as Sadiq Khan, London’s mayor.
Last week, Mr Howard presented a research paper rounding up the evidence about the efficacy of masks from 156 scientists to the World Health Organisation. The pre-print version was the most viewed of all time on the website where it was published.
Now, 95 per cent of the global population lives in countries where the governments and leading health experts agree that masks are effective, according to Mr Howard.
Six months on from the outbreak in Wuhan, China, and after half a million deaths globally, Boris Johnson has joined Mr Trump in backing the virtues of face coverings. Masks will be mandatory in shops from July 24 in England, as they are in Scotland.
Dr Bharat Pankhania, a senior clinical lecturer at Exeter University, said: “It is an extremely important contribution from Jeremy Howard. Some of us have been saying this for months, and it feels as though we have been talking to ourselves. Thousands could have been saved. But at least this does feel like a watershed week.”
Dr Richard Stutt, from Cambridge University’s epidemiology and modelling group, said that while homemade masks do not stop a wearer inhaling the virus, he said evidence has shown they are “very effective in capturing droplets from infectious people and thus prevent spread” when worn across the population.
There remain, though, shades of grey in the academic argument.
Prof Jonathan Ball, a Nottingham University virologist, said: “I’m not against masks as such, but I am concerned that if they are not used properly, then issues like personal hygiene slip. Many of the studies that Jeremy Howard looks at are from the Far East, where they have had good results, but there have been a range of other measures in place, like track and trace and testing. New Zealand, which did well, never advocated masks.”
Mr Trump muddied the water on Friday by saying he would never order all Americans to wear a mask as people should have “a certain freedom”.
But for Mr Howard, seeing the US president wear his was a sign he could step away from his all-encompassing Masks4All campaign and back to a more normal life – still with his mask on, of course.