CDC Chief claims that there is a better solution for COVID-19, more effective than a vaccine. He said that face masks could prevent the virus more efficiently.
During a congressional hearing on Wednesday, Sept. 16, Dr. Robert Redfield, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's director, showed the disposable surgical mask he was wearing and said that it is way better than a "much-hoped-for" vaccine.
"This face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine," said Redfield.
He added that a vaccine could only have 70% immunogenicity, which means that the medicine would not work on around 1/3 of people to whom it is injected.
"If I don't get an immune response, the vaccine's not going to protect me. This face mask will," said the CDC chief
His statements contradicted what U.S. President Donald Trump's said during a televised town hall. The CDC official said that a lot of individuals think that wearing face masks is not good.
However, according to The New York Times' latest report, Trump disagreed with the CDC chief's statement. He said that the official might have made a mistake, and it's just incorrect information.
What other benefits could a face mask provide?
The New England Journal of Medicine's previous study explained that a face mask could act as a kind of exposure therapy. It was explained that since the covering doesn't filter out all the virus-containing droplets, it could train or prepare the body to fight COVID-19 without actually making the person sick.
However, the article explained that if the theory is correct, population-wide masking using any face-covering could contribute to increasing the number of asymptomatic infected people.
The study's reasoning behind the idea is that people wearing face masks would only receive a smaller amount of viral particles than those without masks.
COVID-19 could be controlled just like cholera
Sarah Cobey, a computational biologist at the University of Chicago, said that the mechanical barriers could indeed be more effective than vaccines in preventing the virus transmission. She added that COVID-19 could also be controlled just like other enteric pathogens such as cholera, which was managed by improving plumbing rather than developing its vaccine.
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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.
