Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, officially ended his state mask this week and allowed businesses to reopen, despite opposition. Gilberto Hinojosa, president of the Texas Democratic Party, described the action as “extraordinarily dangerous” and said it would “kill Texans.”
As the coronavirus pandemic officially enters its second year after being officially declared a “pandemic” by the World Health Organization, health professionals have condemned the movements of the nation’s second-largest state to allows people to visit businesses without wearing a mask.
Barbara Alexander, president of the Society of Infectious Diseases of America, said three words to the people: “Mask yourself, America!” “Reports indicating that these reductions have stalled should remind us that our progress is fragile,” she said, referring to declining rates of coronavirus infections.
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“COVID-19 continues to spread and take lives. Emerging and more transmissible variants of the virus present new and increased risks.
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“Only about 10% of Americans nationwide have been vaccinated (33 million people) and many of those most at risk have not yet received a vaccine. COVID-19 continues to spread and take lives. Emerging and more transmissible variants of the virus present new and increased risks, “she said.
Austin, Texas’ fourth-largest city, will need masks for people to visit businesses. As of Thursday, the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 in the US continues to rise and has recently exceeded 530,624. Texas has the third highest number of COVID-related deaths (46,007) in the country after California and New York.
Maintaining social distance, avoiding large meetings, washing hands frequently and wearing masks should continue, Alexander said. “Their abandonment will now postpone the day when we will be able to put COVID-19 behind us. We cannot forget the lessons that this pandemic or its gravity taught us ”.
The only Americans who should give up masks are those who have already been fully vaccinated and should only do so among other vaccinated people, according to guidelines on how fully vaccinated people can socialize released this week by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Disease Control and Prevention.
In a recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, researchers at Indiana University said that even most high school-age youth are willing to wear face masks to help stop the spread of COVID-19, although they have called for more. education on how to wear masks properly and more consistently.
Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A review of the literature on facial masks published in January by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official journal of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded: “Wearing a public mask is most effective at reducing the spread of the virus when compliance is high. “
“The preponderance of evidence indicates that wearing a mask reduces contact transmissibility by reducing the transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts,” concluded the 19 international authors of the journal.
COVID-19 is known to be transmissible among pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals and those with few symptoms. “We recommend that public officials and governments strongly encourage the widespread use of face masks in public,” they wrote.
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“Wearing a public mask is most effective at reducing the spread of the virus when compliance is high.”
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Facial masks probably played a role in reducing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Italy in the first half of 2020 and could have reduced the number of official cases of COVID-19 by up to 30,000 during the spring of 2020. research was found in the peer-reviewed journal, Infectious Diseases.
Morten Gram Pedersen, lead author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Padua, wrote in the study: “We did not see this reduction in places that did not introduce additional local interventions at that time. ”
Many previous studies have said that facial masks have helped reduce contagion by reducing drops that are sprayed into the air. Masks may also help to promote healthy behaviors and encourage people not to touch their faces during or after being in public.
This study says that N95 medical masks help filter viruses larger than 0.1 micrometers (one micrometer is one millionth of a meter). The coronavirus is 0.125 micrometers. These products “have proven to be effective at filtering smaller particles and are designed to fit snugly on the face”.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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Asked last month if Americans will continue to wear masks in 2022 and when life will return to normal, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN. “It may be so and again it really depends on what you mean by normalcy.”
“If normality means exactly the way things were before we had this happen to us, then I can’t predict that,” he said. “Obviously, I think we’ll have a significant degree of normalcy beyond the terrible burden we’ve all been through in the last year.”
But he warned that new, more contagious versions of the COVID-19 virus will also determine whether people will continue to wear masks in 2022. “There are so many other things that would make a projection that I offer you today in Sunday wind. until six months from now. ”
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“I think we will have a significant degree of normalcy beyond the terrible burden we have all borne in the last year.”
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Fauci said that if 70% to 85% of the US population were vaccinated, it would equate to a good “herd immunity”, and the country should begin to return to normal until the fall. This, of course, may depend on the age, circumstances and basic conditions of the individuals.
In January, US President Joe Biden signed a masked warrant for all federal workers and anyone in federal ownership. According to the mandate, “everyone should wear masks, maintain physical distance and adhere to other public health measures, as required by the CDC guidelines.”
Pfizer PFE,
and German partner BNTX of BioNTech SE,
and MRNA from Moderna,
Two-stroke mRNA-based vaccines are approximately 95% effective. The J&J vaccine is an adenovirus vector-based vaccine and requires a single shot in the United States. It has an efficiency of 72%.
Despite the reluctance of some Americans to receive the J&J vaccine, even if people are not given a choice, all three vaccines can prevent severe illness, hospitalization and death. “Each of them is very effective in preventing clinically apparent diseases,” Fauci said Friday.