On June 24, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said “‘everyone’ should wear a mask to prevent the spread of coronavirus.” Cases of the disease are rising in a number of states. As CNN notes:
[W]earing a mask is the most effective way to stop person-to person spread, according to a new study. A team of researchers in Texas and California compared Covid-19 infection rate trends in Italy and New York both before and after face masks were made mandatory. Both locations started to see infection rates flatten only after mandatory face mask measures were put in place, according to the study published Thursday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers calculated that wearing face masks prevented more than 78,000 infections in Italy between April 6 and May 9, and more than 66,000 infections in New York City between April 17 and May 9.
Rubio’s remarks came after a GOP lunch with Vice President Pence, and after Rubio stated that we should focus on preventing “outbreaks in nursing homes” and “assisted living facilities.”
Former California governors Pete Wilson (R), Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), and Gray Davis (D) told Californians to wear masks in a public service announcement. They disagree with each other on a multitude of subjects, but they all agree you should wear a mask because it so obviously reduces the spread of COVID-19.
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They are right. Everyone should wear a mask. In East Asia and the Czech Republic, mask-wearing greatly reduced the spread of coronavirus. Mask-wearing is a key reason why the virus spread less there than in the United States. As the New York Times reported. “Places like Hong Kong and Taiwan that jumped to action early with social distancing and universal mask wearing have gotten their cases under much greater control.”
As Science Magazine notes, “Health authorities in parts of Asia have encouraged all citizens to wear masks in public to prevent the spread of the virus, regardless of whether they have symptoms.” As a result, those foreign countries fared much better in the coronavirus pandemic than America did.