Bill Gates says when Covid runs rampant, masks are like pants: ‘You have to wear’ them

When Covid is running rampant, you should probably put face masks and pants on before you leave the house.

Gates asked rhetorically, and with a laugh, what the downside of wearing a mask was. I'm trying to figure it out.

The new guidelines for indoor masking were released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday. More than 70% of Americans are no longer advised to wear face masks indoors under the new guidance, which identifies high-risk communities by measuring local Covid caseloads, hospitalizations and hospital capacity.

If the numbers rise in the coming months or even years, indoor masking could become recommended again.

Gates anticipates that as well. As Covid enters its endemic stage, cases and hospitalizations will rise and fall like the flu, meaning masks will need to become part of everyone's seasonal wardrobe.

He said that some mask-wearing probably will be indicated in the future.

The odds of getting Covid in an indoor setting are lower with high-quality face coverings. A CDC study found that wearing an N95 or KN95 respirator indoors lowered a person's odds of testing positive for Covid by 83%. The odds for surgical masks were lower than for cloth masks.

According to the CDC, masks can help prevent you from getting the flu. Gates warned at the conference that masks could be useful in the event of another Pandemic.

Gates said that vaccines designed to eliminate several families of respiratory viruses, including flu and Covid variant, could arrive in the coming years. Multiple teams working on pan-coronaviruses vaccines have reported positive early results over the past year, thanks to the billions of dollars funneled into vaccine research by Gates.

Gates thinks we can come up with an eradication vaccine in the next decade.

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