As cities and states are loosening stay-at-home orders and people are increasingly interacting in person, many officials have a message for them: Keep wearing your masks.
“How do you get the adoption, so people understand that wearing protective equipment is the most effective way to stop the spread of the virus as we start opening up our economy?” asked Akhtar Badshah, a professor with the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance and former leader at Microsoft.
Today California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered all residents to wear masks in high-risk situations including indoor public spaces, when getting healthcare services, on public transit and outside when a distance of 6 feet cannot be maintained around other people.
Washington state has not issued such a mandate. To promote the voluntary use of protective masks, including fabric and medical-grade face coverings, Badshah teamed up with former Microsoft executive Rich Tong and former dean of the Evans School Sandra Archibald to launch the Seattle-based nonprofit Restart Partners. The organization is taking a multi-pronged approach to boost mask usage including:
- Creating the “Restart Decision Tool” to help governments, employers and other organizations calculate their need for masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) for safe reopening
- Starting the #WearAMaskWA public campaign in partnership with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee asking residents to record and share PSA videos explaining why they wear masks
- Providing information for organizations purchasing PPEs
- Raising funds to purchase masks for those who can’t afford them
Promoting mask wearing is not as easy as public health officials would hope for. There were mixed messages around masks at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as their efficacy was unclear and there was a serious need to conserve medical masks for healthcare and other essential workers. National leaders including President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have repeatedly posed for photo ops and engaged with people publicly without covering their nose and mouth.
The health impacts of using masks is clear, said Tong. “The science is pretty incontrovertible, but hard to find.”
Last month, scientists reviewed the available data on the impacts of mask wearing and concluded, in a non-peer reviewed paper, that “the preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces the transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected droplets in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends wearing cloth masks in public, particularly when it is difficult to stay 6-feet apart from other people. Early reports suggest there has not been a significant uptick in infection rates among Black Lives Matter protestors in Seattle. Images from the events show the vast majority of participants wearing masks.
One of the benefits of widespread mask use is preventing disease spread from people who are infected but do not yet show symptoms of COVID-19 or who will never show symptoms.
Washington state and Utah are both using the Restart Partners modeling tool for calculating PPE need. The free tool is currently available as an Excel spreadsheet and an upcoming version will be accessible through a web dashboard and other formats. Interested users can contact the organization at info@restart.us.
Public health initiatives can take years and changes in laws to catch hold — think of anti-smoking efforts or measures to encourage seat belt use. Given the urgency of COVID-19, #WearAMaskWA is working the angles it can, making the movement fun and recruiting sports teams like the Seattle Sounders to participate. Organizers would love to see game makers, for example, include pro-mask messages in their products.
While some people are behaving as though the coronavirus threat is past, there are troubling spikes in the rates of infection as areas begin reopening restaurants, stores and other businesses for in-person use. States including Arizona, Alabama and Florida are seeing significant increases.
There are some people who want to wear masks but cannot afford them, and there are numerous efforts in the Pacific Northwest to make and donate masks, as we’ve reported in GeekWire. Additional mask fundraising and donation efforts include Restart Partners and the Washington Mask Challenge launched by Washington’s Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib, United Way and Serve Washington.
