Science shows that face masks work both to protect the wearer and to protect others from the coronavirus, and everyone should wear one in public, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Tuesday.
Even the cloth masks help enough to be worth it, said three senior CDC officials in a commentary published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"While community use of face covers has increased significantly, especially in jurisdictions where prescriptions are mandatory, resistance persists," CDC director, Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC chief medical officer, Dr. John Brooks and Deputy Director of Infectious Diseases, Dr. JayButler said in a joint editorial.
There is "a lot of evidence" that people who have no symptoms and who don't realize they are infected may be the cause of the continuing outbreak of infections, they wrote.
Redfield has increasingly expressed support for the use of face masks, and the CDC released details of a study on Tuesday that revealed that two hairstylists in Springfield, Missouri, infected with a coronavirus had not infected any of the 139 clients they worked with, probably because they wore masks.
"Covering the mouth and nose with filter materials has two purposes: personal protection against inhalation of pathogens and harmful particles and source control to avoid exposing others to infectious microbes that can be expelled while breathing, "wrote the three officials.
Even homemade cloth masks help. Face covers are not necessary all the time - for example, people driving or walking alone in uncrowded spaces are probably safe without one.
"But when individuals choose to go out or need to be close to others in public, a cloth face covering can help reduce the spread of COVID-19 from asymptomatic and other individuals."
