Wearing a mask doesn't just protect others from COVID, it protects you from infection, perhaps serious illness, too

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/wearing-a-mask-doesn-t-just-protect-others-from-covid-it-protects-you-from-infection-perhaps-serious-illness-too/ar-BB16LciZ?li=BBnbcA1

Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
July 15, 2020


A new report from a hair salon in Springfield, Missouri, shows wearing a face mask isn't just altruistic – it also helps keep the person wearing it from getting COVID-19.

And some infectious disease experts increasingly think wearing a mask could mean that even if a person is infected, they are more likely to get a milder or even asymptomatic form of the disease.

The Missouri hair salon case was published in this week's Morbidity and Mortality Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It's an example of the power of face masks to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

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Six close contacts of the first stylist ended up coming down with COVID-19. But in the salon, where 98% of clients wore masks, things played out differently. Of the 67 clients exposed to one or both of the stylists and tested for COVID-19, not one tested positive.

While cloth face coverings aren't 100% effective, "wearing them means you're exposed to less virus. Less is coming in from other people and you're inhaling less. It's a win-win," said Dr. John Brooks, a medical epidemiologist and the CDC's chief medical officer for the agency’s COVID-19 response.

If the American public were to embrace masking now, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the pandemic could be brought to heel in less than two months.

"If we could get everybody to wear a mask right now, I really do think over the next 4-6-8 weeks, I really think we can bring this under control," he said in an interview Tuesday with the editor in chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/507563-missouri-study-finds-masks-likely-prevented-stylists-from-passing-on

By Justin Wise - 07/15/20 06:04 PM EDT

A mask policy at a Missouri salon likely helped prevent a pair of stylists who contracted the novel coronavirus from spreading it to any of the nearly 140 clients they came into contact with, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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