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The death toll from coronavirus in the US may reach half a million by the end of February, but wearing a universal mask could save nearly 130,000 lives, according to a study.
Researchers at the University of Washington analyzed non-pharmaceutical ways to minimize COVID-19 fatalities.
Their analysis examined how the disease has spread in different states and projected the effects of different levels of social distancing and mask use from mid-September 2020 to the end of February 2021.
The risk of coronavirus and the pressure on hospitals will remain high through the winter in all settings, they said, especially in populous states like Florida and California.
But if 95% of people wore a mask in public, researchers say 129,574 lives could be saved, or 96,000 lives if 85% of people used it.
President Trump finally started wearing a mask in public after first saying he wouldn’t
So far there have been more than 223,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the US since the crisis began, according to Johns Hopkins University.
“Our findings indicate that universal mask use, a relatively affordable and low-impact intervention, has the potential to serve as a priority life-saving strategy in every state in the US,” he says the investigation – published in the journal Nature Medicine.
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The authors cite a recent study that suggested that only 49% of Americans said they “always” wear a mask in public.
However, citing an article in the New York Times, they add that 95% of the use of masks had already been observed in some neighborhoods of the city.
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Donald trump became famous for avoiding the use of masks earlier in the pandemic, but eventually began wearing one.
His electoral rival, Democratic candidate Joe biden, has emphasized the importance of covering the face, insisting that “masks matter” and “save lives.”
Confronting Trump during the final presidential debate on Thursday, Biden waved his black mask as an accessory and said, “If we only wore masks, we could save 100,000 lives.”
In the UK, face covering became mandatory in many public settings after conflicting initial reports about its effectiveness.
