Live with someone vulnerable? ‘You need to really consider wearing a mask at home,’ Birx says. As the Trump administration struggles to contain the coronavirus pandemic, and the U.S. economy continues to reel, two of the administration’s top health experts on Sunday encouraged more people to voluntarily wear masks. Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the Trump administration’s coronavirus coordinator, said that people living in the growing number of places where cases are increasing should consider wearing a mask if they live with someone who is especially vulnerable. “If you have an outbreak in your rural area or in your city, you need to really consider wearing a mask at home, assuming that you’re positive if you have individuals in your household with co-morbidities,” Dr. Birx said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”Adm. Brett P. Giroir, the assistant secretary for health, speaking on the NBC program “Meet the Press,” said, “Wearing a mask is incredibly important, but we have to have like 85 or 90 percent of individuals wearing a mask and avoiding crowds.” Those percentages, he said, give “you the same outcome as a complete shutdown.”

Source: International New York Times August 03, 2020 09:11 UTC