Coronavirus: US health authorities may broaden face mask guidelines

As data shows a significant percentage of coronavirus carriers have no symptoms, experts are in talks in the US to widen guidelines wearing face masks.

Phoebe Loomes

@dollyybird

2 min read

April 2, 2020 - 4:13PM

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Top health authorities in the US are considering walking back advice that healthy people don’t need to wear face masks.

Until now, the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) has said people without coronavirus symptoms don’t need face masks. The advice is similar to that given by the Australian federal health authorities, who say there’s little evidence widespread wearing of masks is helpful in stopping the spread of the virus.

Coronavirus has caused devastation in the US, where it has infected more than 210,000 people. In Australia, more than 5100 cases of the virus have been confirmed.

But new data provided to the CDC has suggested that 25 per cent of people with coronavirus don’t present symptoms and are spreading the disease without knowing it.

Now health authorities in the US say changes to advice around face masks are being discussed at a high level.

French doctors in surgical masks in a hospital in Germany. Picture: Ina Fassbender/AFP

“One of the (pieces of) information that we have pretty much confirmed now is that a significant number of individuals that are infected actually remain asymptomatic,” CDC director Robert Redfield told NPR on Tuesday. “That may be as many as 25 per cent,” he said, citing Chinese data.

Coronavirus is far more contagious than the flu — by a factor of three or four, Dr Redfield said. It’s spread through respiratory droplets when people cough or sneeze, but also when people touch surfaces at home or outside.

It’s also possible that some spread may even occur when infected people use and then flush the toilet, creating a plume of viral-laden air in the bathroom.

The current advice to US citizens from the CDC is that you should only wear a mask if you are sick, or are caring for sick people at home. The advice says wearing masks stops the disease spreading. But the CDC signalled this could become much more broad, and soon.

AUSTRALIAN GUIDELINES AROUND FACE MASKS

Men wearing masks as they wait outside in Tripoli. Picture: Mahmud Turkia/AFP

In Australia, there is specific advice around the use of a surgical mask.

“If you have COVID-19, wearing a surgical mask can help prevent spreading it to others,” the Department of Health advises.

“If you are well, you do not need to wear a surgical mask. There is little evidence that widespread use of surgical masks in healthy people prevents transmission.”

In the US, the widespread wearing of face masks has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, who encouraged people to make their own masks if they can’t get surgical masks.

“You can use a scarf. A lot of people have scarfs and a scarf would be very good,” he said at his daily White House briefing on Tuesday.

“The idea of getting a much more broad community-wide use of masks outside of the health care setting is under very active discussion at the task force,” Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the coronavirus task force told CNN on Tuesday.

“The thing that has inhibited that a bit is to make sure we don’t take away the supply of masks from the health care workers who need them.

“But once we get in a situation where we have enough masks, I believe there will be some very serious consideration about more broadening this recommendation of using masks.”

— with AFP