Trump & facemasks

New York Times (extracts):

Coronavirus Live Updates: C.D.C. Recommends Wearing Masks in Public, but Trump Says: ‘I’m Choosing Not to Do It’

In the daily White House coronavirus briefing on Friday, President Trump announced the C.D.C. recommended wearing a mask, but said he probably wouldn’t follow the guidelines.

President Trump said on Friday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was urging all Americans to wear a mask when they leave their homes, but he immediately undercut the message by repeatedly calling the recommendation voluntary and saying that he would not wear one himself.

“With the masks, it is going to be a voluntary thing,” the president said at the beginning of the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House. “You can do it. You don’t have to do it. I am choosing not to do it. It may be good. It is only a recommendation, voluntary.”

“Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens — I don’t know,” he added, though he stopped receiving foreign dignitaries weeks ago. “Somehow, I just don’t see it for myself.”

Mr. Trump’s announcement, followed by his quick dismissal, was a remarkable public display of the intense debate that has played out inside the West Wing over the past several days as a divided administration argued about whether to request such a drastic change in Americans’ social behavior.

And it came at a particularly contentious briefing where the president insulted reporters, jousted with his own administration and returned to pugilistic form.

Mr. Trump again dismissed the recommendation of Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for a national stay-at-home order, saying he would leave such demands to the governors. But he did say that the federal government would pay hospitals to treat coronavirus patients, instead of allowing people to buy heavily subsidized insurance on the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges, as many Democrats have urged.

The mask debate has played out in public and in private. Mr. Trump said Americans who choose to comply with the C.D.C.’s recommendation should use a basic cloth or face mask, not medical- or surgical-grade masks that are used by hospital workers and emergency workers. He also said people must still follow social distancing guidelines, which he called the “safest way to avoid the infection.”

real reason for his kerbau
also read US accused of being 'hijacker' of facemasks

Senior officials at the C.D.C. have been pushing the president for days to advise everyone — even people who appear to be healthy — to wear a mask or a scarf that covers their mouth and nose when shopping at the grocery store or while in other public places.