Wear a Face Mask, Don’t Let Politics Trump Science

                                                  No President Allowed Without a Face Mask! 

​I have received a lot of great feedback on the first blog post “Vote 2020”. I agree it was too long and should have been broken up into two or three separate posts. The next topic I will explore is the use of face masks during the coronavirus pandemic. I have split it into two posts for easier consumption.
 
The evidence is clear, wearing facial coverings or face masks, helps to reduce the spread of coronavirus. I can’t find an epidemiologist, infectious disease specialist, or public health official who disagrees with this. I wear a face mask every time I leave the house, but many people don’t. Why is wearing a face mask still controversial, and why did a health crisis turn political? Here we are six months into the pandemic. Many states are experiencing increasing cases of COVID-19, and hospitals are nearing capacity in several major cities in Florida, Arizona, Texas and California. So how did we get here?

We have received mixed messages on the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) since it was first detected in the U.S. in January. The virus was novel (new) and there was not much known about it. The coronavirus causes the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). During the early months of the pandemic, information coming out of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Trump Administration, has caused a lot of confusion. This was particularly true regarding the use of face masks.  We were first told not to wear face masks, now we are encouraged, but not always required to wear them. Here’s what some of these agencies and federal officials had to say:

World Health Organization (WHO): The WHO first provided guidance on the use of face masks in a report entitled “Advice on the use of masks in the context of COVID-19: Interim guidance” dated January 29, 2020. This report stated that “There is currently no evidence that wearing a mask (whether medical or other types) by healthy persons in the wider community setting, including universal community masking, can prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including COVID-19”. It wasn’t until June 5, in an update to this guidance report, that the WHO tepidly sanctioned face mask use by the general public (https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/332293/WHO-2019-nCov-IPC_Masks-2020.4-eng.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y). The report acknowledged that the WHO’s change in stance was due to observational evidence in several countries that face masks might help to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. In this report the WHO also acknowledged that airborne transmission of the COVID-19 virus is possible. But the organization stuck to their belief that most transmission occurred from symptomatic people in close contact with others.  We would latter learn that a significant amount of transmission is occuring  from asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people, bolstering the need for widespread use of face masks.  

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): This federal agency is the Nation’s top public health agency and is headed by Dr. Robert Redfield, a presidential appointee. The CDC is the lead agency in tracking and responding to epidemics and emerging pandemics. Since the coronavirus is new and was only identified in China in January, the CDC was chiefly reliant upon the WHO for information. The CDC took the WHO’s lead on not recommending face masks for the general public. This became the stance of our federal government during February and March. On April 3, 2020 the CDC announced new guidelines. These new guidelines recommended that the general public should wear nonsurgical cloth face coverings when out in public, when social distancing of 6 feet or more is difficult to maintain  (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html). It is important to note that these are recommendations, and there is no requirement to follow them.

U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS): This federal agency is headed by Surgeon General Jerome Adams, a presidential appointee. In a February 29, 2020 tweet, the Surgeon General wrote “Seriously people. STOP Buying Masks! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus…”. He reversed course on April 3, 2020 to come in line with the new CDC guidelines.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Dr. Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Dr. Fauci is a career civil servant and can’t be fired by the president. He serves in an advisory role and is a key member of the president’s corona virus task force. Dr. Fauci has been a clear and reasoned voice on the task force, and during the early months of the pandemic Dr. Fauci was in agreement with the CDC regarding the use of face masks. But he has since admitted that the delay in recommending general mask use was motivated by a desire to conserve dwindling supplies for medical professionals (https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus). Dr. Fauci is now an ardent supporter of the use of face masks by the general public, and he has often been at odds with President Trump over the government’s response to the coronavirus.

President Trump:  Even as the CDC and the president’s own coronavirus task force changed their tunes on the use of face masks, the president remained resistant. During the spring and early summer, the president made public appearances in Michigan, Oklahoma, Florida, Arizona, and South Dakota without wearing a face mask, despite local mandates to do so. Many Trump supporters who attended these gatherings modeled the president’s behavior by not wearing face masks. Turning the wearing of face masks into a partisan issue falls squarely on the president. The mocking of Joe Biden for wearing a mask, and refusing to wear a mask in public, was reckless and a failure of leadership. Even the urging of fellow republicans to change his stance, fell on deaf ears. Perhaps Senator Alexander, R-Tennessee said it best, “Unfortunately, this simple, lifesaving practice has become part of a political debate that says: If you’re for Trump you don’t wear a mask. If you’re against Trump you do”.  But Alexander’s suggestion that the president set an example for his millions of admirers, did not sway him. According to an Ipsos poll taken in June (https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/newsy-COVID-19-June), 60% of Democrats and 34% of Republicans responded that they wear a mask at all times. The poll also reported that 74% of Americans agree that President Trump should wear a face mask in public. 

President Trump finally wore a face mask in public on July 11 while visiting Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. But this did not stop the mixed messaging coming from the president and his administration. In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday earlier this month, the president said that he was against a national mask mandate. “No, I want people to have a certain freedom, and I don’t believe in that. No, and I don’t agree with the statement that if everybody wears a mask everything disappears”. By this time the Director of the CDC, the Surgeon General, and Dr. Fauci were practically pleading with the American people to wear face masks in public. The president appears to have finally caught up to his health experts on July 20 when he tweeted a picture of himself wearing a face mask, with the message “We are United in our effort to defeat the Invisible China Virus, and many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance. There is nobody more Patriotic than me, your favorite President!”

Why did the simple act of wearing a face mask become political, and why did the president finally change his tune?  President Trump is a politician (although I doubt that he would admit it), and the business of politicians is to get elected and to stay in office. The president is in the middle of a tough reelection campaign, and will often water down the truth and deflect negative news. Prior to the pandemic, President Trump planned to ride his way to reelection on the strength of the economy. As any modern-day politician knows “It’s the economy, stupid”, as coined by Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville. It is difficult to unseat an incumbent president when the economy is doing well, and it was doing great prior to the pandemic. Unemployment was low and stock market indices were near all-time highs. The global pandemic started to rock financial markets at the end of February, and unemployment began to soar as cities and states began to lock down in March and April. But no matter how much the president tried to ignore the pandemic and wish it away, it only got worse. He simply didn’t want to shine the spotlight on the double-digit unemployment, negative GDP growth, and the financial market turmoil. But what he failed to realize, is that the American people tend to rally behind their leaders in times of crisis, and we are in the middle of a health and economic crisis. Nobody blames the president for the pandemic, just his lack of leadership in the handling of the crisis. If the president showed strong leadership in the face of these two crises, he would be less vulnerable in the upcoming election.

It would take several months before the president realized that the new election mantra had become “It’s the coronavirus, stupid”.   President Trump could no longer ignore his negative poll numbers. In a July poll by ABC News and the Washington Post, the president’s approval of his handling of the pandemic had fallen to 38%. (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/64-distrust-trump-coronavirus-pandemic-approval-declines-cases/story?id=71779279).
 
Wearing a facial covering while in public spaces is crucial to slow the spread of coronavirus. But facial coverings are not 100% effective. In order to minimize your exposure, it is also important to maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet, and to practice proper hand sanitation. Wearing a face shield or other eye protection is also recommended when in contact with individuals known, or suspected of having COVID-19.

In the next blog post I will explore the different types of face masks and the issue of mask mandates.

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Armchair American