TThe two stylists in Springfield, Missouri broke the fundamental rule of infection control: Despite having respiratory symptoms, one went to work and saw clients for eight days, when he learned that he had tested positive for Covid-19. His colleague also developed symptoms, three days after his co-worker, and also continued working until he tested positive, two days after the first stylist. Together, they saw 139 clients, with appointments for haircuts, shaves, and perms for 15 to 45 minutes.
However, when the local health department identified and contacted the 139 clients, asking them to self-quarantine for 14 days and check daily if they had developed symptoms of Covid-19, not a single one (of the 104 who agreed to be interviewed) did. Of the 67 who accepted a swab test, all tested negative. There was another notable fact about the case: Stylists and all clients had covered their faces.
The severe case, described Tuesday in the Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report, adds to the almost universal scientific consensus that, more than any individual action, unless everyone enters solitary confinement, facial coatings can prevent the transmission of the coronavirus that Covid cause- 19)
ad
“Like collective immunity with vaccines, the more people wear cloth face covers in public places where they can be close, the more protected the whole community will be,” said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Illnesses, and two colleagues wrote in an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, also published Tuesday. Because fabric face liners can also allow states to more safely alleviate home stay requests and business closings, Redfield said Tuesday in a JAMA Live webcast: “If we could getting everyone to wear a mask right now, I really think that in the next four, six, eight weeks, we could control this epidemic. “
The “yes” of course has been the problem. Because masking or refusing to mask has become a political statement, only 62% of Americans said in April they did (CDC recommended the practice on April 3); In May, 76% said yes, according to another MMWR study. The CDC’s advice followed weeks of mixed and conflicting messages, and even after it was issued, President Trump and other national leaders failed to live up to facial covers.
ad
Although the use of masks does not differ according to gender, it varies according to the region of the country. In May, 87% of people surveyed in the Northeast said they wore masks when they went out to the pubis; it was 80% in the west, 74% in the midwest, and 71% in the south, where cases skyrocket.
Facial coatings almost certainly explain why Springfield stylists didn’t pass the virus on to a single client. Of the 104 clients surveyed, 102 said they wore a covered face (usually cloth-covered or surgical masks) throughout their appointment; two said they did it on the one hand. Both stylists were always masked.
The benefits of masking in reducing viral transmission are evident by far more than the unusual case of a Springfield salon, of course. In an unpublished analysis of 194 countries, those who did not recommend face masks saw an increase in Covid-19 mortality per capita of 54% every week after the first case appeared; In countries with masking policies, the weekly increase was only 8%.
And in Massachusetts’ largest healthcare system, Mass Gen Brigham, before administrators adopted a universal masking policy for healthcare workers in late March, new Covid-19 infections in that population they increased exponentially, from 0% to 21%, or 1.16% per day, on average, the researchers reported in another JAMA article published Tuesday. With everyone masked, the Covid-19 rate in healthcare workers fell to 11.5% in late April, falling 0.49% per day, on average.
In his editorial, Redfield presented not only a public health case to cover his face but also an inexpensive one. Citing an analysis by Goldman Sachs Research, he and colleagues noted that if masking increased by 15%, “it could avoid the need to return home-stay orders that would otherwise cost an estimated 5% of gross domestic product. , or a projected cost of $ 1 billion. “
“The widespread adoption of fabric face liners is a civic duty,” Redfield and his co-authors wrote in their editorial.
