Covid-19: Donald Trump promotes use of cloth masks but won't wear one himself

Washington - U.S president says the new Centers For Disease Control and Prevention guidelines are voluntary.

The U.S. government is now recommending Americans wear cloth face coverings on a voluntary basis to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus, President Donald Trump said on Friday, adding that he himself would not be following the advisory.
In a daily briefing with reporters, Trump stressed that the new recommendation should not be seen as replacing social distancing measures considered key to slowing the outbreak, which has claimed more lives in New York state than the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"With the masks, it's going to be really a voluntary thing. You can do it, you don't have to do it," Trump said. "I'm choosing not to do it, but some people may want to do it and that's ok," he added.
Trump said that the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are not recommending the use of medical grade masks for healthy people who are not working on the frontlines.
Responding to a question about why he had chosen not to follow the recommendations he was announcing, Trump said, "I'm feeling good. I just don't want to be doing -- somehow sitting in the Oval Office behind that beautiful resolute desk, the great resolute desk, i think wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don't know, somehow I don't see it for myself. I just don't. Maybe I'll change my mind."
The CDC's website that the recommendations were updated following new research that some infected people can transmit the coronavirus even without displaying symptoms of the disease.
"In light of this new evidence, CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain," such as in grocery stores or pharmacies, "especially in areas of significant community-based transmission," the CDC says.
New York state remains the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, with at least 102,863 confirmed cases and at least 2,935 deaths.
The CDC said that cloth face coverings can be made at low cost from household items as an additional measure. The coverings are not a replacement for other social distancing measures when in public, such as maintaining six feet away from other people, the CDC said.
The agency also noted that the coverings it recommends people wear "are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators."
"Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders," the new guidance says.
Trump has previously recommended people wear scarves over their face, rather than respirators, which are in short supply and desperately needed by health-care workers for protection when tending to infected patients.
Experts have said there is scant evidence to suggest covering one's face with a scarf, bandana or other material will offer protection from the coronavirus.
Doctors told CNBC that while cloth coverings might prevent some secretions from being passed on to other people, they might also make people more likely to touch their faces.
They could also engender a "false sense of security," doctors said, which could lead people to disregard other preventative measures that are more established.