CDC to review guidance for masks, Adams says
Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. government has said masks were not needed for the general public.
That guidance could soon change. In an interview Wednesday on “Good Morning America,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was asked to review its guidance.
“We’ve learned there’s a fair amount of asymptomatic spread, and so we’ve asked the CDC to take another look at whether or not having more people wear masks will prevent transmission of the disease to other people,” Adams said.
“Even if you do wear a mask, it can’t be at the expense of social distancing,” he said, noting a mask such as an N95 would not be necessary because it could come at the expense of health care workers who needed one.
Responding to a clip of the interview on Twitter, the surgeon general’s account said health officials, including the surgeon general’s office, the CDC and the World Health Organization, had recommended against the general public wearing face masks “based on the best available science at the time regarding whether or not they prevent wearers from catching coronavirus.”
At the end of February, the surgeon general’s Twitter account put out an all-caps plea to Americans to “STOP
BUYING MASKS” because they were “NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.”
The CDC’s guidance on masks is that sick people should wear them, but healthy people should not unless they are in contact with COVID-19 patients.
“CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19. You should only wear a mask if a healthcare professional recommends it. A facemask should be used by people who have COVID-19 and are showing symptoms,” the CDC says.
Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, said there was “no specific evidence” to suggest there was any “particular benefit” to the mass public wearing masks.
Outside the USA and Europe, maskwearing is a more common practice. In an interview March 27 with Science Magazine, Chinese CDC director-general George Gao said the “big mistake in the U.S. and Europe” was that “people aren’t wearing masks.”
Masks could help protect against the spread of the disease, or against “asymptomatic or presymptomatic infections,” according to Gao.
“If they are wearing face masks, it can prevent droplets that carry the virus from escaping and infecting others,” he said.