You're listening to shortwave from NPR.

My mask protects you.

Your mask protects me.

That's basically how we were told to think about face coverings when CDC first recommended

wearing them.

The CDC is advising the use of non-medical cloth face covering as an additional voluntary

public health measure.

So it's voluntary.

You don't have to do it.

This was way back on April 3rd.

This is all about me protecting you and you protecting me.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams put it this way.

If people voluntarily choose to wear a face covering, they're wearing it to protect

their neighbors from getting the coronavirus because again, they could have asymptomatic

spread.

Basically, we knew masks could help prevent big clouds of spitty virus particles from

flying out of the mouth of an infected person.

Our understanding of the virus was so new that we weren't as sure masks protected

healthy people from getting the virus if they encountered those clouds of virus particles.

Yeah, it's kind of interesting.

The main messaging, and I think that is still largely the case in a lot of places, is

that masks are better for the other.

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