ATLANTA — It's a debate that has popped up again in recent days, with President Trump suggesting Americans could be asked to wear masks in public and seemingly shifting guidance from the CDC.
So is it necessary? Do healthy-seeming need people to wear a mask of some sort outside?
NBC News medical correspondent Dr. John Torres spoke with 11Alive and laid out some of the contours of the debate.
"This is the great mask debate - some experts on one side saying they might help out a little bit, but you're getting the CDC and World Health Organization both coming out saying, 'you know, they're not really going to help, people shouldn't be wearing them in the public."
The debate tends to center around whether there's value in having people who appear healthy and don't show any symptoms of COVID-19 wear the masks, considering how easily the novel coronavirus seems to spread even among asymptomatic people.
The concern is that they can, perhaps counterintuitively, also make it easier for healthy people to catch the virus.
"Some studies are showing they can make things a little bit worse and make it more likely to catch the virus," Dr. Torres said. "Here's why: When people wear masks - if they don't wear them appropriately, if they're not putting them on over their nose and their mouth and keeping them dry, then the virus can actually get in there."
"Especially if they get inside that six-foot perimeter we usually talk about, that social distancing. And it gives people a false sense of security so they get closer to other people," he added. "On top of that it's not protecting the eyes, which is another way the virus can get in."
But, Dr. Torres notes, the matter still isn't settled.
"Some experts are saying, 'Hold on a second, it might offer a little bit of protection,'" he said. "Everybody says the surgical masks - the N95 masks -reserve those for the frontline workers, they need those desperately because they're constantly in someone's face that might have coronavirus. But for everybody else, will these help a little bit? They might offer a little bit of protection, but you have to wear them appropriately, you have to wear them constantly."
The best protection, Dr. Torres said, is still the same advice that's been given throughout the outbreak: Keep washing your hands, keep social distancing.
"There's not much else you can do that's better than that," he said.
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