Masks have become a critical part of our new day-to-day pandemic lifestyle. Whether it's a run-of-the-mill blue surgical mask or one with sequins to match your outfit, everyone wears one to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
Perhaps one of the most exciting things we have to look forward to is the day we don’t have to wear one.
But, Joe Biden is pushing a 100-day mask challenge as part of his campaign to combat COVID-19, and some experts want masks to be worn forever.
Experts like Dr. Fauci, for example, are saying that masks should be worn even after vaccination.
This leads to an important question: if masks are worn to prevent the spread of infection, why would you need to wear one if you’ve been vaccinated, or have already had the virus?
The new team left talking point is that the vaccine won’t change a thing, so the new mandate being proposed is that we continue wearing them.
And not just one: multiple.
Linsey Marr, an expert in virus transmission at Virginia Tech, told the New York Times that “double masks” is the way to go.
“If you combine multiple layers, you start achieving pretty high efficiencies of blocking the virus,” she said.
A Boston University physician said that despite the vaccine, masks will be around for a while.
“Masks are going to be with us for a really long time,” Elissa Schechter-Perkins told Chalkbeat. “Especially because we know kids are not going to be vaccinated right away, and masks are a really strong protective measure.”
Joe Biden’s senior COVID-19 adviser, Andy Slavitt, urged less interaction for kids: “We should be more careful with kids. They should circulate less or will become vectors. Like mosquitos carrying a tropical disease. Of course, they can become sick themselves this way. I’m not sure what I would say about schools besides wishing Trump had built testing up.”
Children are perhaps the most affected by the masks and lockdowns, having their development stunted for a year - and now maybe longer.
But, data shows that children don’t tend to contract or transmit the virus easily. If they do, it tends to be a mild form, BizPacReview reports.
This call for permanent mask wearing stems from studies conducted on monkeys, which found that some vaccinated monkeys didn’t get sick but still carried the virus in their noses.
The monkeys were exposed to mass amounts of the coronavirus and, while they did contract less virus than unvaccinated animals, they still had it.