As the United States stares down the barrel of a pandemic death toll of up to 240,000, even in a good scenario, opinion may be shifting in favour of the use of face masks by the public.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has long recommended against the use of face masks by the public, saying that only people who are ill should wear them. Thus, in obvious contrast to Southeast Asia or East Asia, almost nobody out and about in America wears a mask.
And given that the US' Covid-19 case and mortality rates have rocketed, some are wondering if - apart from the administration's failure to gear up in time to contain the coronavirus - the fact that most of the public in a leaky lockdown do not wear masks is a factor.
The CDC's guidance has not changed, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and easily the real pandemic expert in the White House coronavirus task force, told MSNBC on Tuesday night.
"What is being actively discussed... is given the fact that there is a degree of transmission from asymptomatic individuals who may not know they are infected, we need to at least examine the possibility, as long as we are absolutely certain we won't take these masks away from individuals who need them, of some sort of facial covering," he said.
"It doesn't have to be a classical mask, but something that will prevent them from infecting others. This is actively being looked at."
Earlier on Monday, in an interview with National Public Radio, CDC director Robert Redfield said the agency was taking another look at the data on mask use by the public.
"I can tell you that the data and this issue of whether it's going to contribute are being aggressively reviewed as we speak," he said.
The question is simple. If a mask protects a healthcare worker dealing with a Covid-19 or any other patient, or protects a patient from a healthcare worker, why would it not protect any other person wearing it in any other situation in which he may encounter an infected person at close quarters?
The answer is equally simple. It would.
The CDC has confused the public, a nurse who has been working for two weeks with Covid-19 patients in New York City told The Straits Times. She asked not to be named. "As a professional, I'd be wearing it all the time if I was at work, so it doesn't make sense to tell others not to wear one," she said.
Official guidelines differ from country to country.
In Austria, the authorities this week ordered all supermarket shoppers to don face masks to stem the spread of the virus.The Czech Republic has also issued measures requiring its people to wear masks in public.
In China, the authorities strongly encourage the use of masks in public, though the National Health Commission said last month that this was not needed in wellventilated, uncrowded areas. Actual enforcement of the guideline is left up to local governments.
In the US, a key driver of the CDC's guidance was the need to avert a run on masks to ensure their supply in hospitals. And despite promises by President Donald Trump days ago of "millions and millions" of face masks in the pipeline, there is still very clearly a shortage.
This is partly because healthcare staff must ensure they are protected in dealing with any patient exhibiting any of a wide range of Covid-19 symptoms, and are thus using personal protection equipment at an exponentially greater rate than normal. But with infection rates soaring, the CDC's logic is being questioned.
