Advice on the use of masks in the context of Covid-19 - WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) updated its guidance to recommend that governments ask everyone to wear fabric face masks in public areas where there is a risk of transmission of COVID-19 to help reduce the spread of the pandemic disease.

In its new guidance, prompted by evidence from studies conducted in recent weeks, the WHO stressed that face masks were only one of a range of tools that can reduce the risk of viral transmission, and should not give a false sense of protection.

"Masks on their own will not protect you from COVID-19," the WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters at a briefing.

The WHO's technical lead expert on COVID-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, said in a Reuters interview: "We are advising governments to encourage that the general public wear a mask. And we specify a fabric mask - that is, a non-medical mask.

"We have new research findings," she added. "We have evidence now that if this is done properly it can provide a barrier for potentially infectious droplets."

While some countries and U.S. states have recommended or mandated the wearing of face coverings in public, the WHO had previously said there was not enough evidence for or against the use of masks for healthy people in the wider community. It had always recommended that medical masks be worn by people who are sick and by those caring for them.

• https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/advice-on-the-use-of-masks-in-the-community-during-home-care-and-in-healthcare-settings-in-the-context-of-the-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov)-outbreak
  

Source- The Star News & World Health Organization (WHO)