President Trump said Monday that he would consider recommending people wear protective masks while out in public to reduce the risk of catching or spreading the coronavirus.
“We haven’t discussed it to that extent, but it’s certainly something we could discuss,” Trump said during Monday’s coronavirus press briefing in the Rose Garden.
“I could see something like that happening for a period of time,” he said.
Federal health officials initially discouraged people from buying surgical masks for themselves if they were not working in medical settings where they would be exposed to the virus, claiming that they would not help people protect themselves in everyday life.
More recently, however, many experts have been saying that widespread use of masks could curb transmission of the virus. Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb co-authored a policy road map to help reduce the spread of the virus and urged the general public to wear masks.
“Face masks will be most effective at slowing the spread of [the coronavirus] if they are widely used because they may help prevent people who are asymptomatically infected from transmitting the disease unknowingly,” concluded the roadmap published by the American Enterprise Institute.
There has been emerging evidence this month that protective masks can prevent the spread of the virus not only in hospitals and other healthcare provider settings, but also in public places.
Dr. Sui Huang, a molecular and cell biologist at the Institute for Systems Biology, reported that the virus spreads mainly in sneeze and cough droplets rather than through the air, so wearing a surgical mask would help keep people safe even if they have not been exposed to a coronavirus patient.
“There is now a robust scientific basis for putting an end to the officials’ anti-surgical mask hysteria and to recommend or even mandate a broad use of masks, as in Asian countries that have bent the curve,” Dr. Huang said.
The Trump administration has been criticized for a slow response to the viral outbreak and lack of sufficient protective equipment, including masks. Trump said on Monday, however, that providing masks for the general public will not be a problem if he decided to recommend everyday use.
“We’re getting certainly the number of masks that you need,” Trump said. “We are in the process of talking about this.”
