Jeremy Howard with Joy Reid
00:00:00.000 | >> Putting a mask on yourself is more to prevent you from infecting someone else. And if everybody
00:00:11.920 | does that, we're each protecting each other because the data is it's more efficient to prevent
00:00:18.720 | transmitting to others than it is to prevent transmission to yourself.
00:00:23.680 | >> Even though the benefits of wearing a mask apparently aren't enough to compel
00:00:29.840 | Donald Trump to wear one, the CDC is now recommending people wear cloth masks while
00:00:34.560 | out in public to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Joining me now is Dr. Ashish Jha,
00:00:40.400 | Director of the Harvard Global Health Institute and Jeremy Howard, founder of Masks for All.
00:00:45.680 | Thank you all for being here. Dr. Jha, I'm gonna start with you first,
00:00:48.480 | to help stop coronavirus, everyone should be wearing face masks. I've got to tell you Jeremy's
00:00:53.600 | piece, so I won't give you that piece. But can you explain the difference in thinking?
00:00:58.480 | Because the original thinking was masks were more important for somebody who's already sick
00:01:02.640 | to prevent other people from getting sick, but now the thinking has changed, how so?
00:01:06.480 | >> Yeah, so we have more and more evidence that we've known actually for a while that
00:01:12.000 | asymptomatic people, people who have no symptoms at all, can spread the disease. But that data has
00:01:17.360 | now really become crystal clear, I would say over the last month or so. And therefore, when you're
00:01:22.960 | out in public, you're at a grocery store, you may be infected, you may be spreading the disease,
00:01:27.920 | but have no symptoms at all, and becomes really important that you put on that mask.
00:01:32.640 | Because as Dr. Fauci said, we're all gonna get through this together, and if we protect each
00:01:36.880 | other by wearing masks, it's gonna make a big difference. >> Yeah, and now I will read the
00:01:43.440 | piece that Jeremy, you wrote. You wrote every country with enforced mask usage shows dramatically
00:01:49.600 | lower death rates compared to countries not using masks widely. Our affiliate in Miami,
00:01:55.840 | my former place of work, has noted that Miami Beach, the city of Miami Beach has ordered employees and
00:02:00.880 | customers in stores to wear masks and facial coverings as of Friday. Talk about your initiative
00:02:06.880 | to make sure because there's one thing to say wear masks, the second thing is how do you get them?
00:02:10.800 | >> Yeah, so there's a couple of important things to know here. So as the doctor mentioned,
00:02:16.160 | the science is now clear, a nature article that came out just showed that 100% of the time,
00:02:21.280 | the coronavirus was blocked by a simple cloth cover. So you don't need a fancy N95 respirator,
00:02:27.600 | leave them for the hospitals where they're doing dangerous procedures.
00:02:30.480 | You just gotta cover your mouth. If you don't do so, you're protecting those, you're putting
00:02:35.040 | at risk those around you. And if you go out and see somebody else not wearing a mask,
00:02:38.960 | they're putting you at risk. This disease is a silent assassin. So the closest we have right
00:02:44.240 | now to a kind of imperfect vaccine is to cover up your face. The advisor on this to the WHO says
00:02:51.360 | this might be even more important than distancing, but that's how important this is. So it's not
00:02:57.280 | enough for you to do it. You need everybody in your community to do it. And that's why we
00:03:01.600 | need enforcement on this. If we hit a magic number, the number is 80%. If 80% comply,
00:03:07.200 | modeling suggests we can actually kill this virus off.
00:03:09.760 | >> And Dr. Shaw, I wanna play you what Donald Trump had to say
00:03:15.440 | about this idea of wearing masks. And this is despite the fact that the CDC now contradicts
00:03:19.440 | him. Here he is on Friday. >> The CDC is advising the use of
00:03:25.360 | non-medical cloth face covering as an additional voluntary public health measures.
00:03:32.000 | You can do it, you don't have to do it. I'm choosing not to do it,
00:03:34.720 | but some people may wanna do it and that's okay. Somehow sitting in the Oval Office
00:03:39.600 | beyond that beautiful resolute desk. The great resolute desk, I think wearing a face mask
00:03:45.600 | as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens, I don't know,
00:03:52.880 | somehow. I don't see it for myself. >> Dr. Shaw, he says you can do it,
00:03:58.960 | you don't have to do it. He's worried about the aesthetics of meeting.
00:04:04.000 | I'm not sure why he'd be meeting with prime ministers and kings and queens.
00:04:08.800 | In his office, but he thinks the aesthetics of him wearing a mask wouldn't be good for himself.
00:04:12.720 | Your thoughts on his thoughts, Dr. Shaw. >> Yeah, so a principal element of leadership
00:04:19.360 | is modeling, modeling good behavior. And there is very clear evidence that we should be wearing
00:04:25.760 | masks when we're out in public. By the way, it is not a substitute for distancing.
00:04:29.680 | It alone isn't good enough, but it is a really important component of doing what is right for
00:04:35.840 | our society. And if it's good thing for all of us to be doing, then the president should
00:04:40.640 | be modeling that behavior. That in my mind is fundamental to good leadership.
00:04:44.480 | >> And very quickly to stay with you, here's Deborah Birx who is one of his experts and she's
00:04:52.080 | saying this is her solution is don't go to the store, take a listen.
00:04:55.280 | >> The next two weeks are extraordinarily important. And that's why I think you've heard
00:05:01.040 | from Dr. Fauci, from myself, from the president and the vice president, that this is the moment
00:05:07.120 | to do everything that you can on the presidential guidelines.
00:05:11.920 | This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy,
00:05:16.080 | but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe. And that means
00:05:20.640 | everybody doing the six feet distancing washing your hands.
00:05:24.800 | >> Dr. Shaw, this again is confusing because we don't know how long I'm
00:05:30.640 | right now in the DC area. We don't know how long people are gonna have to be holed up.
00:05:34.720 | It seems to me that going to the grocery store and stocking up and going to the pharmacy,
00:05:38.720 | or at least ordering your meds if you need them for the next couple of weeks,
00:05:42.000 | seems to be exactly what you should be doing. Particularly if you're wearing a mask is,
00:05:45.600 | I don't understand the conflict between that and what she said to you.
00:05:48.560 | >> Yeah, so what Dr. Birx is saying, and it's true, is that we really are in a crunch time.
00:05:54.720 | The next two weeks in many parts of the country are gonna be the peak time for the disease.
00:06:00.320 | And so if you can limit, so if you have to go to the grocery store, you gotta go to the grocery
00:06:04.480 | store. But if you can avoid it or pack all your purchases to one trip, wear a mask, wash your
00:06:11.520 | hands. Really use the next two weeks to kind of tamp down on activity. It's gonna be very,
00:06:18.240 | very important. So obviously, if you need your medicines, get your medicines. If you need food,
00:06:22.480 | get your food. But instead of making four trips to the grocery store, make one and really try to
00:06:27.520 | limit your activity for the next couple of weeks. Cuz those are probably the two,
00:06:31.520 | three most important weeks in terms of the peak of the infection in large parts of the country.
00:06:36.800 | >> Yeah, and Jeremy, so please explain your initiative, Masks for All. Tell us what is
00:06:42.720 | the purpose of it and how do people get involved. >> Okay, so the magic word to write down,
00:06:47.440 | I hope everybody's ready, is masks for all. That's the number for masks for all.
00:06:54.400 | How this magic word works. Go to masksforall.co. You see it on the screen there and you'll see how
00:06:59.120 | to make your own mask so that you don't take a mask away from hospitals that need the special ones.
00:07:04.240 | Text that word to 50409 and that will send a message to your legislators and your governor
00:07:12.560 | demanding mask for all executive orders. Here's why you need them. If you go to a shop and somebody
00:07:19.600 | there is not wearing a mask, they could kill you. We've already seen this on public transport,
00:07:24.800 | the bus driver who died and somebody on his bus coughed without wearing a mask,
00:07:29.840 | but it's not just coughing, it's talking. We actually know talking is the main way this
00:07:33.920 | thing spreads. So we need to make sure if you're gonna be safe in your community, go to your shop
00:07:38.400 | and demand that they have a no mask, no service policy. That's gonna keep you safe. Otherwise,
00:07:44.960 | you go in that shop, person behind you not wearing a mask, they could kill you, right?
00:07:49.600 | This is a public health issue. This is not a personal responsibility thing. If we get 80%
00:07:54.480 | of people wearing a mask, it could save your life. It could save the economy. It could put us back
00:07:59.600 | on track. And it apparently is not that difficult to make them. You can sort of make your own,
00:08:06.480 | right? I mean, some people are even doing initiatives where they're just making them.
00:08:10.800 | Yeah, so it's so easy, even a data scientist can do it. I'm a data scientist. I made my own mask.
00:08:16.240 | I will admit it looks kind of rather rubbish, but my mother-in-law put pity on me and made this one
00:08:21.040 | for me. What we need, we don't need, any cover is fine. The scarf, a bandana, actually research
00:08:28.960 | that's about to come out shows that any kind of cover stops 99% of droplets. But here's a good
00:08:34.160 | one based on research in Cambridge University in Chinese scientists, two layers of cotton.
00:08:39.920 | And then in the middle is a special magic material that Chinese scientists have discovered is almost
00:08:44.400 | identical to surgical mask material. It's called a paper towel. So you just need two layers of
00:08:49.120 | cotton with a paper towel in the middle. And actually, the surgeon general has a demonstration
00:08:53.120 | of how to make one with a simple handkerchief. If you pop a paper towel in the middle, you've
00:08:57.440 | got your ideal mask ready to go. >> All right, that is a very good advice.
00:09:02.160 | Thank you very much, Dr. Ashish Jha. Thank you very much. And Jeremy Howard,
00:09:05.920 | thank you very much as well. Y'all be safe, thank you. And up next, reckless information
00:09:10.800 | is putting American lives at risk. New York Attorney General Letitia James is here to weigh in.