The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States is supposed to be a reliable source of information pertaining to the latest in helping people protect themselves from such threats as the 2019 Novel Coronavirus, of which at the time this article was written, at least 295,101 people — or slightly greater than 6.85 percent — have died of the minimum of 4,307,287 confirmed cases worldwide, according to this situation dashboard from the World Health Organization pertaining to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus…
They Cannot Even Get Their Own Advice Straight: The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention
…but the advice of how and when to wear masks and coverings for faces is conflicting at best — again, at the time this article was written.
The following paragraph is what is posted at the official Internet web site of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States…
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.
So which is it?
World Health Organization Advice
Perhaps you should instead consider relying on information which has been posted by the World Health Organization — but the recommendation from that entity pertaining to when to use a mask is yet again different:
For healthy people wear a mask only if you are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection
…and…
Wear a mask, if you are coughing or sneezing
I will not even comment on the errant superfluous comma.
Mayo Clinic Advice
Should we instead turn to the Mayo Clinic — which is supposed to be another respected source of information pertaining to health — for advice on when to wear a mask or covering for the face?
Common sense also suggests that some protection is better than none. But wearing a cloth face mask will lose any value unless it’s combined with frequent hand-washing and social distancing.
Also…
Cloth face masks should be worn in public settings where social distancing measures are difficult to maintain, such as in grocery stores, especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.
…and…
Don’t use face masks as a substitute for social distancing.
Summary
I first highlighted the conflict in advice pertaining to masks and coverings for faces from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization in this article after the former agency reversed its stance on this issue last month on Friday, April 3, 2020.
One can argue that anyone can be forgiven for committing a mistake — including people who work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization — especially when attempting to keep up with the rapid pace of changes and new information pertaining to a virus which has millions of people literally fearing for their lives…
…but when a conflict in advice which is meant to protect the health of people in general is not reconciled, how can that advice be taken seriously? I have seen people — from a distance, of course — wear masks or coverings for their faces when they are all alone and far from the nearest person, which really serves no purpose at all.
For that matter, why can I not find a single photograph of Robert R. Redfield — who is the current director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — wearing a mask or covering for his face? Why can I not find a single photograph of Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus — who is the current director-general of the World Health Organization — wearing a mask or covering for his face? Is this a classic case of “do as I say, not as I do”?
This conflict in advice is inexcusable during a public health emergency and highlights one reason why I reached out to you, asking who in the world I can even trust anymore as a reliable source of unbiased information.
No wonder people are confused about what to do to fight the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic…
…and the aforementioned organizations cannot even get the official name of the virus straight, as this article is the latest in a series pertaining to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus — which is also known as COVID-19 or 2019-nCoV or SARS-CoV-2 or HCoV-19 or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 — pandemic in an effort to get the facts out with information derived from reliable sources…
…as well as attempt to maintain a reasoned and sensible ongoing discussion towards how to resolve this pandemic.
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Photograph ©2020 by Brian Cohen.