« Masks indoors and in crowded places », this is the recommendation of the World Health Organization in its latest update of the guidelines for the Covid-19 .
Masks "continue to be a powerful tool against the virus: they are recommended following a recent exposure to Covid, when someone has or suspects they have Covid, if they are at high risk of severe Covid and for anyone in an crowded, stuffy, or poorly ventilated . The update recommends its use regardless of the local epidemiological situation, given the current spread of Covid globally.
Similarly to the previous recommendations, a further warning : there are other cases in which the use of the mask can be suggested, based on a risk assessment . Factors to consider include local epidemiological trends or increasing levels of hospitalization, levels of vaccination coverage and immunity in the community, and the context in which people are located.
The data from Peking University , reported by the BBC, testify to the extent of the infections , still high and rapidly changing. Up to January 11, around 900 million Chinese would have contracted the virus and the report estimates that 64% of the country's population has contracted Covid . However, the peak of infections is expected to last for at least two or three months, according to epidemiologist Zeng Guang, former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control (CDC). And the situation could get worse as hundreds of millions of Chinese are about to travel to their hometowns – many for the first time since the start of the pandemic – ahead of the January 23 Lunar New Year .
(Unioneonline/vf)
