Coronavirus: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to advise Americans to wear face coverings when leaving home
The White House will advise people to cover their faces when they leave home as the virus tightens its grip on the US.
The Trump administration is formalising new guidance to recommend that many, if not almost all, Americans wear face coverings when leaving home, in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.
The new recommendation from The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention would aim to reduce the risk that people who are infected but asymptomatic will spread the virus, according to a draft document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and two people familiar with the planning. It has yet to be announced by the White House.
“A recommendation is coming out. We’ll see what that recommendation is,” President Trump said at his press briefing on Friday, noting that any such guidance on wearing masks would be voluntary.
The White House has been urging people without symptoms not to buy masks, hoping to ease heavy purchases of the products that have created shortages. On February 29, Vice President Mike Pence said: “Let me be very clear — and I’m sure the physicians who are up here will reflect this as well: The average American does not need to go out and buy a mask.” Currently, the CDC and the World Health Organisation say that people who are not sick don’t need to wear a face mask unless they are caring for a sick person.
Several recent studies, however, have prompted a rethink of that policy. Those studies have suggested that the new coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, can be spread by people who are infected but don’t know it because they don’t have symptoms.
“Although we don’t know how often pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic transmission occurs, it appears that people who are infected but not sick play an important role in the spread of Covid-19,” the draft document said.
The cloth masks or face coverings are meant to be an additional measure, on top of social distancing, to reduce spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus, when people are sharing space, according to the draft document.
Cloth masks are being recommended because medical masks, including N95 respirators, are in short supply for health-care workers caring for people with COVID-19. “These cloth face coverings can be made at home at a low cost,” the draft document said.
Cloth masks don’t fully protect wearers from becoming infected because they aren’t completely sealed on the face, according to experts. But they can help prevent people who are infected from spreading the virus by catching droplets emitted while exhaling, coughing or sneezing. They should not be used on children under two years old, or anyone who has trouble breathing, according to the draft document.
The President, who has been tested again for COVID-19 using a new rapid test, indicated this week he would support such a recommendation, potentially even for all Americans regardless of where they live. “I would say do it, but use a scarf if you want, you know, rather than going out and getting a mask or whatever.”
“It’s not a bad idea, at least for a period of time,” he added.
The White House said Mr Trump’s latest test returned a negative result in 15 minutes, and said he was “healthy and without symptoms.”
On Wednesday, Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, urged his city’s four million residents to wear masks when they’re in public. On Thursday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio followed suit in his city, the epicentre of the virus’ spread in the US.
We have new guidance for New Yorkers:
— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) April 2, 2020
We're advising New Yorkers to wear a face covering when you go outside and near others. It can be a scarf, a bandana or one you make at home. But PLEASE: save medical masks for our health care workers & first responders who truly need them.
The discussions on the new guidance came as the White House moved aggressively to defend its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, particularly its efforts to speed the distribution of protective equipment needed by medical professionals and ventilators.
Mr Trump sent a politically tinged letter to Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York objecting to his criticism of the administration’s response. “The Federal Government is merely a back-up for state governments,” Mr Trump wrote. “Unfortunately, your state needed far more of a back-up than most others.”
More than one million people have now been infected with coronavirus killing over 50,000 as the fast-moving pandemic tightens its grip each day around the world.
The grim milestone underscored the pace and severity of the pandemic as the United States and Europe grapple with steep death tolls amid fears that developing countries could eventually face even worse devastation.
The news came as the United States was once again rocked by stunning unemployment figures with a record 6.6 million US workers applying for unemployment benefits last week. This followed 3.3 million applications the previous week, meaning an unprecedented 10 million Americans have so far lost their jobs in the sudden economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The size of the number of the job losses has fuelled fears that the US faces an economic downturn not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
The rapid spread of the virus in the US has forced the Democratic Party to move its Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from July 13 to August 17th — a week before the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina. But it remains unclear whether it will be considered safe, even in August, to hold these large, crowded conventions despite their traditional importance in the election calendar.
Figures from John Hopkins University showed the number of global
infections have now passed one million with 50,000 deaths in 180 countries although the number is believed to be higher because of underreporting of infections and deaths from China and Iran.
In the US another thousand people lost their lives in 24 hours with the number of cases rising to 237,000 and deaths soaring to 5648.
In the hotspot of New York, the state’s Governor Andrew Cuomo warned that there were only enough ventilators to last for the next six days unless more could be quickly purchased.
“If a person comes in and needs a ventilator and you don’t have a ventilator, the person dies,” Mr Cuomo said. “That’s the blunt equation here. And right now we have a burn rate that would suggest we have about six days in the stockpile.”
Mr Cuomo has been frustrated by the lack of support from the Trump White House which has advised him to try to purchase ventilators on the market, including from China.
“I don’t think the federal government is in a position to provide ventilators to the extent the nation may need them,” Mr Cuomo said. “Just assume you are on your own in life.”
Mr Trump said New York was definitely a hotspot and that Americans were standing by New Yorkers.
“All of America stands being the people of New York in their hour of need,’’ he said. “They need help now, they need people to help them.’’
Mr Trump hit back at criticism from state governors that he has not done enough to ensure they have sufficient masks, ventilators and emergency supplies.
“Some have insatiable appetites and are never satisfied (politics?). Remember, we are a backup for them. The complainers should have been stocked up and ready long before this crisis hit,’ he tweeted.
More than 423 more people died in New York in the past 24 hours, taking that state’s death toll to 2373 with more than 92,000 cases.
A second hotspot is fast emerging in Louisiana which reported a 42 per cent jump in cases in one day, with 9150 cases and 310 deaths.
The state’s Governor John Bel Edwards said the figures were “extremely upsetting’’, with many of those infected believed to have been involved in the recent Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will create a bipartisan committee to oversee how the Trump administration spends its $US2.2 trillion stimulus package passed by Congress last week.
Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin said the committee was not necessary, but Mr Pelosi disagreed, saying “Where there’s money there’s also frequently mischief.”
However Mr Trump hit out at the Democrats, saying it was “not the time for political, endless partisan investigations’’ that he said had done such “extraordinary damage’’ in recent years.
The Texas border town of Laredo became the first in the US to compel residents to cover their nose and mouth in public, saying those who do not use a mask or scarf to cover their faces would face a $US1000 fine.
Mr Trump’s coronavirus Taskforce has been weighing up whether to recommend that all Americans wear some form of face mask during the pandemic which is projected to cost between 100,000 and 240,000 US lives.
(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia)
With The Wall Street Journal
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