Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading disease and infectious expert, is now urging a federal mask mandate across the country to control the number of COVID-19 infections.

(Photo : Reutersconnect)
Anthony Fauci, MD, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, looks on before testifying at a U.S. Senate Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Hearing to examine COVID-19, focusing on an update on the federal response.

Wearing facemask is still one of the measures that experts continue to urge to fight the infectious and deadly COVID-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci first said on Sept. 15 during a news conference with Vermont Gov. Phil Scott that a federal mandate in wearing face mask would not work. 

Even though Dr. Fauci at that time has been urging the Americans to wear face masks, he was also reluctant that it can not be implemented across the country. He also added during that time that there is no need for a federal law that mandates the wearing of facemasks. 

On July 21, Dr. Fauci told a news outlet, "I have trust in the American people that if we put a strong emphasis on the importance of wearing masks, that we will come around and do that and get that percentage up above the relatively low percentage of people that are using masks."

In the same month, Dr. Fauci also told Alabama that he does not want to be authoritarian to the federal government but he also suggested that state and local officials can mandate the use of facemasks most especially if there is an outbreak. 

Fauci's change of mind

However, the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in the country has shifted Dr. Fauci and is now urging for a federal mandate on the use of face mask. He said on Friday though CNN News that people until now are not wearing facemasks and it is now the time to mandate it. 

The infectious and deadly COVID-19 has worsened across the 32 states while the number of cases remains steady in 17 states as of Friday.

According to the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the U.S. was entering a winter surge as the number of infections has reached more than 75,000 in a single day and 800 deaths on Friday. 

On the other hand, Dr. Fauci also admitted that implementing such federal law will be tricky and difficult because not everyone will follow it.

But he also believed that if everyone agrees that wearing a face mask is important and there is uniformity in implementing it, then it would save a lot of lives.

Dr. Fauci is also quite worried as the cooler season comes because this also means flu season is just around the corner. It is expected that there will be more number of individuals who will experience flu which is one of the COVID-19 symptoms. It is for this reason that he suggested that people need to double their efforts on measures that work. 

The country's leading disease infectious expert emphasized the universal mask earing, social distancing, and hand washing as the most common measures to combat COVID-19.

"They sound very simple. But we're not uniformly doing that and that's one of the reasons we're seeing these surges," Fauci stated.

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