Miami Beach Mayor All For Federal Guidelines Recommending Use Of Masks As Long As It Doesn't Affect Supply For First Responders
MIAMI (CBSMiami) – New federal guidelines recommending the use of masks outside of your home could be released as soon as Friday.
"When the advisory comes out, it will be and additive piece… rather than this is a substitute for," said Dr. Deborah Birx.
Birx, one of the members of the White House Coronavirus Task force, hinted at new guidelines for wearing masks in public to help slow down the spread of the virus.
New York City and Los Angeles got out ahead of them in the last couple days asking their citizens to put on the masks.
"If it helps, then I'll be telling people to wear them," said Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.
Gelber said he's all for it as long as people aren't taking medical grade masks from health care workers.
"What we don't want is to take them away from our first responders who desperately need it, and our health care professionals, but people can do their at-home ones," he said.
Medical grade masks like the N95s are hard to come by and should be saved for medical professionals. But there are other masks, including homemade ones, that people are making in the hopes of staying safe.
"It just makes common sense that it's not a bad idea to do that. It's not going to be 100 percent and it's more not to protect you from getting infected, right, but to protect a person from getting infected from you," said Dr. Anthony Fauci.
While the White House keeps kicking around the idea of new guidelines, the one thing that needs to be done, mask or no mask, is social distancing.
"The most important thing is social distancing and washing your hands and we don't want people to get an artificial sense of protection because they're behind a mask," said Birx.
