Teen Vogue: Mask mandates making comeback as experts warn of fourth wave of COVID-19
UC infectious disease expert says the big question is how big the fourth wave will be
Mask mandates are making a comeback as infectious disease experts say we could be at the beginning of a fourth wave of COVID-19, thanks to the Delta variant. While vaccines have proven effective against preventing severe illness, vaccination rates are low in some areas with rapidly expanding case counts. With the back-to-school season looming, the return of mask mandates could be a sign of what this fall and winter will look like.
Teen Vogue published a round up of media coverage of the return of mask mandates and the fourth wave of COVID-19, citing coverage by TIME, CNN, ABC News and CBS News among others. It also included a story from WLWT-TV in Cincinnati that featured Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the UC College of Medicine.
Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the UC College of Medicine/Photo/Joe Fuqua II/UC Creative + Brand
"There will be a fourth wave," said Fichtenbaum. "The question is how big will it be?"
In an interview earlier this week with WVXU, Fichtenbaum touched on the return of wearing masks in certain situations.
"If we are going to go out in public, particularly to closed spaces like indoor restaurants, movie theaters and venues, there may be people around who are infected, they may know it, they may not know it," Fichtebaum said. "Those people can transmit that infection to us and so the safest thing for us to do is to wear a mask in the indoor settings and continue our hand washing and use the reasonable precautions when going out."
Read the entire Teen Vogue article here.
Lead photo/Ben Hasty/MediaNews Group/Getty Images.
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