Public health experts have spent months emphasizing that masks are one of the most effective tools to help combat the pandemic, and many US states have now introduced some form of mask requirement. However, Trump has refused to introduce a mandate at the national level, saying he wants people to have “some freedom.”
But in many other nations, that discussion is over and mask mandates are becoming the norm.
Other countries made mandatory masks months ago.
In the Czech Republic, masks became compulsory for everyone anywhere outside their home from midnight on March 19, with subsequent exemptions for children under the age of two and people driving alone. German states introduced fines of € 15 to € 5,000 for not wearing a mask in April. In May, Spain made facial coatings mandatory in indoor and outdoor public spaces where a minimum distance of two meters cannot be guaranteed.
Nations like Scotland, Italy and Greece have also made the use of facial coatings mandatory in retail stores, while countries like Cuba, Pakistan and Iran have made them mandatory in crowded public spaces.
Experts wrote in the journal Science in May that the world needed to take airborne transmission of the virus seriously, pointing to places where mask use was universal and the virus had been largely controlled, such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. .
The Hong Kong government, like many others in Asia, has recommended covering its face since the start of the pandemic. Last week he announced that the masks would be mandatory on public transportation after registering an increase in infections. Most Hong Kong citizens have regularly worn masks in public since the outbreak.
Dr. Padmini Murthy, a professor and director of global health at New York Medical College, told a United Nations panel on July 8 that “wearing a mask, ladies and gentlemen, is respect.”
He highlighted places like South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand, which practiced wearing masks, social distancing and contact tracing at the start of the pandemic, and now have fewer than six deaths for every million people.
However, masks remain a divisive issue in the United States. Arkansas joined at least 39 states that now have some form of mask requirement Tuesday, but states, including Florida and Arizona, are leaving it to local officials. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is suing Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms for the city’s mask mandate.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, urged governors and mayors to be “as forceful as possible” for people to use.
In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, said it was “strange that we have made … wearing the mask political.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that science shows that face masks protect both the user and others of Covid-19, and advised that everyone should wear one when be around other people in public.
Even cloth face masks help, three senior CDC officials said in a comment published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“While community use of facial coatings has increased substantially, particularly in jurisdictions with mandatory orders, resistance continues,” said CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, CDC Medical Director Dr. John Brooks, and Deputy Director of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Jay Butler. A joint editorial.
There is “ample evidence” that people who do not have symptoms and may not realize they are infected may be driving the continued increase in infections, they wrote. “At this critical juncture when Covid-19 is making a comeback, the widespread adoption of fabric covers is a civic duty.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) updated its guidance on the use of face masks on June 5, advising nations to encourage the public to wear cloth face covers in public where the coronavirus is spreading.
Leadership acceptance is important. Melinda Mills, director of the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Sciences at Oxford University, told CNN last week that people in countries like Italy and Spain, without a prior history of wearing masks, “quickly adopted face covers during the Covid period- 19 “. largely because the authorities provided them with a consistent policy and clear guidelines for understanding why they should use them. “
Masks are considered globally as a key tool to help contain the coronavirus. The question is whether Trump will make them mandatory in the United States.
CNN’s Maggie Fox, Rob Picheta, Pierre Bairin, James Griffiths, Nakia McNabb and Sarah Dean contributed to the reports.
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