- The CDC is now recommending that individuals who go outside wear either a mask or cloth covering over their mouths to help prevent the coronavirus from spreading even further.
- While lockdown measures in some U.S. cities have helped flatten the curve, other cities may not experience a peak number of corona-related deaths for a few more weeks.
- States that still have a high risk of the coronavirus spreading include Florida, Michigan, and Alabama.
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The sad and harsh reality is that the coronavirus still hasn’t reached its peak in many major U.S. cities. While some areas will reportedly experience a peak number of hospitalizations and deaths over the next few days, the virus in some cities will continue to spread and get worse over the coming few weeks.
As part of a broader effort to help prevent the virus from spreading further, new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that individuals wear a mask or cloth covering if they have no choice but to venture outside for groceries or other errands.
The new CDC recommendation comes in the wake of new data which shows that the coronavirus can spread easily even when a victim isn’t showing any symptoms. The CDC notes:
We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms (“asymptomatic”) and that even those who eventually develop symptoms (“pre-symptomatic”) can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms. This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity—for example, speaking, coughing, or sneezing—even if those people are not exhibiting symptoms.
In light of this new evidence, CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.
To be clear, the recommendation doesn’t call for folks to don masks of the N95 variety, but rather any type of mouth covering one can fashion out of a bandana or other type of cloth garment. According to the CDC, even these makeshift masks can help prevent the coronavirus from spreading far and wide.
In conjunction with the CDC recommendation, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams recently took to YouTube to show people how easy it is to fashion a mask out of something as readily available as a t-shirt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPx1yqvJgf4&feature=emb_title
In the relatively short 45-second video, Adams demonstrates how a mask can be fashioned by simply folding a t-shirt in a set way and then using rubber bands to secure it around one’s mouth.
As to a cure, scientists recently discovered that an anti-parasitic drug can kill COVID-19 in just about two days in lab conditions. The drug, however, has yet to be tested on anyone who actually has the virus.
