{"id":716,"date":"2020-03-20T18:27:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T22:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=716"},"modified":"2020-11-18T15:42:10","modified_gmt":"2020-11-18T20:42:10","slug":"why-does-the-us-not-recommend-wearing-face-masks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=716","title":{"rendered":"Why does the US not recommend wearing face masks?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Question:<\/strong> Why does the US not<\/em> recommend wearing face masks?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Answer:<\/strong> After hearing CDC\u2019s Dr. Nancy Messonnier state on multiple occasions<\/a> that we should not be buying or using face masks if we are healthy, while simultaneously seeing so many people in China, Japan, and South Korea wearing masks, I became curious about this too! First off, CDC\u2019s guidance<\/a> is: 1) people who are well should<\/strong> not wear<\/strong> a face mask; 2) people who are sick should wear<\/strong> a face mask when in public or interacting with others in order to minimize virus spread and protect others; 3) health care providers should wear<\/strong> a face mask to protect their patients and protect themselves. So there\u2019s the background. What\u2019s the evidence? Most of the evidence is outlined in CDC\u2019s 2017 report, Community Mitigation Guidelines to Prevent Pandemic Influenza<\/a> and what\u2019s shown in the report (recommendations from which are copied below) is that there is limited data on protective effects of mask wearing among healthy people. Couple that with the fact that we are in a situation where face masks are in high demand and supplies are limited \u2014 and it makes even more sense that CDC would caution well people from buying and using face masks. Indeed, CDC just issued Strategies to Optimize Personal Protective Equipment Supply<\/a> because supply shortages are so critical. So, if you\u2019re living in the US, it\u2019s best to save the face masks for those who are sick and for our health care providers. Now, if you\u2019re living in East Asia, cultural norms will likely mean that you wear a face mask regardless of your underlying health (South China Morning Post published a fascinating article<\/a> a few days ago on East\/West face mask cultural differences). And in response over the last month, China boosted its face mask production capacity<\/a> by 450 percent!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Question: Why does the US not recommend wearing face masks? Answer: After hearing CDC\u2019s Dr. Nancy Messonnier state on multiple occasions that we should not be buying or using face masks if we are healthy, while simultaneously seeing so many people in China, Japan, and South Korea wearing masks, I became curious about this too! First off, CDC\u2019s guidance is: 1) people who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":717,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[50,100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guidelines","category-masks","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/pexels-photo-3786153.jpeg?fit=867%2C1300&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":718,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/716\/revisions\/718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}