Trump Administration Officials Weigh How Far to Go on Recommending Masks

Her caveats on masks reflect what has been a common view among many public health bodies about the effectiveness of masks for the general public. Until now, the C.D.C., like the World Health Organization, has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason has been to preserve medical-grade masks, including N95 respirator masks, for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply.

Still, as the coronavirus devastates the United States, the C.D.C. has been drafting new guidelines recommending that everyone wear face coverings in public settings, like pharmacies and grocery stores, to avoid unwittingly spreading the virus, according to a federal official.

Public health officials have continued to stress, however, that N95 masks and surgical masks should be saved for front-line doctors and nurses, who have been in dire need of protective gear. In the briefing, President Trump suggested that homemade face coverings, like scarves, would suffice.

On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles urged a similar approach, suggesting that all of that city’s residents to wear homemade nonmedical face coverings, or even bandannas, when food shopping or doing other essential errands. Health officials in Riverside County, Calif., made a similar recommendation on Tuesday.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, the Trump administration has had shifting positions on whether regular citizens should cover their faces in public.

“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” the surgeon general, Dr. Jerome M. Adams, said in a tweet in late February. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”

He was most concerned about widespread hoarding of the tightfitting N95 masks that can stop infectious particles even finer than a micron in diameter, and that even many health care workers have not been able to find.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/health/masks-coronavirus-cdc.html