Vigilant mask wearing might have spared nearly 140 people from catching the coronavirus at a hair salon in Missouri, according to a report published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In May, the people interacted with two hair stylists with confirmed coronavirus infections, but
The team behind the study, which includes members of Missouri’s Springfield-Greene County Health Department, cannot be certain of all the factors that helped avert what might otherwise have been a disastrous outbreak. But policies instructing locals to cover their mouths and noses, put in place by the city of Springfield and by the salon where the stylists worked, Great Clips, appear to have played a substantial role in curbing the spread of disease.
Both stylists fell ill in mid-May. But they continued to work with clients for about a week after they started to feel symptoms, said Kendra Findley, a researcher at the Springfield-Greene County Health Department and an author of the study. Story continuesThe second Great Clips employee fell ill within days of her colleague, although none of the other four stylists on staff ended up feeling unwell. The two sick stylists both eventually tested positive for the coronavirus, after which they were told by the salon to isolate at home.
But a majority of people in the study, including the two stylists, opted for cloth coverings or surgical masks — loosefitting accessories that don’t form an airtight seal around the face. Of course, masks alone can’t be considered a foolproof “safety net,” said Saskia Popescu, a hospital epidemiologist and infectious disease expert in Arizona who wasn’t involved in the study. “This is not an excuse to let you go about and do whatever you want, especially if you’re symptomatic.”
A hint of that may even come from the first stylist’s behaviors: It’s very likely that she inadvertently passed the infection to the second Great Clips employee during several unmasked encounters, Findley said.
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