BEIJING, CHINA - FEBRUARY 07: A Chinese woman holds her dog that is wearing a protective mask as well as they stand in the street on February 7, 2020 in Beijing, China. The number of cases of a deadly new coronavirus rose to more than 31000 in mainland China Friday, days after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a global public health emergency. China continued to lock down the city of Wuhan in an effort to contain the spread of the pneumonia-like disease which medical experts have confirmed can be passed from human to human. In an unprecedented move, Chinese authorities have put travel restrictions on the city which is the epicentre of the virus and municipalities in other parts of the country affecting tens of millions of people. The number of those who have died from the virus in China climbed to over 636 on Friday, mostly in Hubei province, and cases have been reported in other countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, India, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and several others. The World Health Organization has warned all governments to be on alert and screening has been stepped up at airports around the world. Some countries, including the United States, have put restrictions on Chinese travelers entering and advised their citizens against travel to China. (Image: Getty)
Rochelle Walensky, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), announced that they will not change their mask recommendation in light of the omicron variant.
Some assumed that the CDC might suggest wearing medical-grade KN95 or N95 masks, but they won’t be going that far.
“What I will say is the best mask that you can that you wear is the one that you will wear and the one you can keep on all day long that you can tolerate in public indoor settings and tolerate where you need to wear it,” Walensky said.
She added that the CDC is working to add updated information to their website on mask types, so the public can have a good understanding of which masks provide greater levels of filtration.
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While the CDC is not encouraging people to only use medical-grade masks, other experts are.
Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, is one of those people.
“Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations and should not be considered an acceptable form of face covering,” Wen tweeted in December. “The US should require (& distribute) medical-grade surgical masks to be worn in crowded indoor spaces.”
White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients recently said that the Biden Administration is working on finding a way to make higher quality masks more accessible.
Omicron is making a wave through the U.S. with the seven-day caseload totaling 751,000 per day. That number signals a 47 percent increase from last week. Walensky added that a preprint study found patients infected with omicron had a “substantially reduced risk” of severe effects than people who had come down with the delta variant.
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