“Mask on, America!” Texas drops COVID-19 mask mandate – health experts say this is a very bad idea

Barbara Alexander, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, had three words for people: “Mask up, America!” “Reports indicating that this reduction has come to a halt should remind us that our progress is fragile,” she said, referring to declining rates of coronavirus infections.

‘Only about 10% of Americans nationwide have been vaccinated (33 million people) and many people at greatest risk have not yet received a vaccine. COVID-19 continues to spread and take lives. “Emerging and more transmissible variants of the virus carry new and increased risks,” she said.

Austin, the fourth largest city in Texas, needs masks for people to visit businesses. As of Thursday, the number of deaths due to COVID-19 in the U.S. is still rising, exceeding 530,624. Texas has the third highest number of COVID-related deaths (46,007) in the country after California and New York.

Alexander must continue to maintain social distance, avoid large gatherings, wash hands regularly, and wear a mask. ‘To abandon it now, the day on which we can put COVID-19 behind us will be postponed. We can not forget the lessons this pandemic has taught us, or the terrible toll of it. ”

The only Americans who should drop the masks are those who have already been fully vaccinated, and they should only do so among other vaccinated, according to guidance on how fully vaccinated people can socialize released this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is.

In a recent study in the Journal of Adolescent Health study, researchers from Indiana University said that even most teens in high school are willing to wear face masks to stop the spread of COVID-19, although they have asked for more training on how to wear masks. properly, and more consistently.

A review of literature on face masks published in January by the peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded: ‘Wearing a public mask is most effective in reducing the spread of the virus when it is met is high. ”

“The consideration of evidence indicates that wearing mask masking reduces contact per contact by reducing the transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts,” the 19 international authors concluded from the review.

COVID-19 is known to be transmissible among pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, and those who have few symptoms. “We recommend that public officials and governments encourage the use of widespread face masks in public,” they wrote.

Face masks probably played a role in reducing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy during the first half of 2020, and could have reduced the number of official COVID-19 cases there by up to 30,000 during the increase in cases during the spring of 2020, was found in peer-reviewed journal Infectious Diseases.

Morten Gram Pedersen, lead author of the study and associate professor at the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Padova, wrote in the study: ‘We did not see this reduction in places that did not introduce additional local interventions at that time. ”

Many previous studies said that face masks helped reduce the contamination by reducing droplets sprayed into the air. Masks also help promote healthy behaviors and encourage people not to touch their faces during or after being in the public environment.

According to this study, N95 masks help filter viruses larger than 0.1 micrometers (one micrometer is one millionth of a meter). The coronavirus is 0.125 micrometers. These products have been shown to be effective at filtering smaller particles and that they fit snugly on the face. ‘

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN last month when asked if Americans would still wear masks in 2022 and when life would return to normal. “It is possible that this is the case, and it really depends on what you mean by normality.”

“If normal means exactly as things were before we came across it, I can not predict it,” he said. “Clearly, I think we’re going to have a significant degree of normality beyond the terrible burden we’re all been going through over the past year.”

But he warned that the new, more contagious versions of the COVID-19 virus would also determine whether humans would still wear masks by 2022. ‘There are so many other things that would make a projection that I will give you today on this Sunday wind. not six months from now. ”

Fauci said that if 70% to 85% of the U.S. population were vaccinated, it would be a good “herd immunity,” and that the country would begin to return to normal by the fall. This can of course depend on individuals’ age, circumstances and underlying conditions.

In January, US President Joe Biden signed a mask mandate for all federal workers and anyone with federal property. According to the mandate, they must “all wear masks, maintain physical distance and follow other measures for public health, as set out in CDC guidelines.”

Pfizer PFE,
+ 0.50%
and the German partner BioNTech SE’s BNTX,
-0.92%
and Modern se MRNA,
-3.02%
mRNA-based bipolar vaccines are approximately 95% effective. J&J vaccine is a vaccine based on adenovirus vectors, and it requires only one shot in the US. It has 72% efficiency.

Despite the reluctance of some Americans to get the J&J vaccine, even though people are not given a choice, all three vaccines can prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death. “Each of them is very effective in preventing clinically apparent diseases,” Fauci said Friday.