The agency previously had recommended that only health care workers, people with COVID-19 and their caregivers wear medical masks.
WHO also widened its mask guidance to specify that health workers in areas where the virus is spreading freely should always wear masks inside medical facilities. Doctors working in cardiology or other wards, for example, should wear medical masks even if the facilities had no known coronavirus patients, Tedros said.
Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's technical lead on COVID-19, said the updated recommendations were based on new research commissioned by the U.N. health agency.Other health agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have recommended for some time the wearing of masks or face coverings by the general public to slow the spread of the coronavirus. British authorities said this week that face coverings would be compulsory on subways and other mass transit.
April Baller, a WHO infection control expert, said the type of masks recommended for the general public are fabric or cloth coverings that can be made at home. She said part of the reason for the widening of WHO's advice on face masks was the increasing evidenceWHO previously said that transmission from people who do not have symptoms was not believed to be a major driver of the virus pandemic.
“What do is they prevent a person who may actually have the disease from transmitting it to somebody else,” Baller said.
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