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Photo by NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images In China, nearly 400,000 face masks are being produced a day
Despite news breaking of the first person-to-person spread of coronavirus in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is not recommending that people start wearing face masks.
“The virus is not spreading in the general community,” Nancy Messonnier, the director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a briefing on Wednesday. “We don’t routinely recommend the use of face masks by the public to prevent respiratory illness. And we certainly are not recommending that at this time for this new virus.”
Instead of wearing face masks, Messonnier said that the general public should “be vigilant to the symptoms and signs of this novel coronavirus that is a fever and cough and if you have those symptoms, please call your health-care provider.”
Ahead of the briefing, the CDC stated on their website that “When person-to-person spread has occurred with MERS and SARS, it is thought to have happened via respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes, similar to how influenza and other respiratory pathogens spread.”
Moving forward, the CDC expects to see more cases of person to person spread of coronavirus, Messonnier said. “We want our actions to be evidence-based and appropriate to the current circumstance,” which she said did not justify the use of face masks people who have not been directly exposed to the virus.
Face masks are often worn to protect against these germs, and in China their demand has skyrocketed to more than 200 million masks a day. With a typical daily output of 400,000 masks produced on a daily basis, there is a significant mask shortage.
Alibaba-owned BABA, -1.74% retailer, Taobao, has sold upward of 80 million face masks a day. The company has urged sellers not to hike the price of the masks being sold despite rampant demand.
