NEW YORK • Dr Deborah Birx, the Trump administration's coronavirus coordinator, said on Sunday that the United States was in a "new phase" of the coronavirus pandemic that was much more sprawling across the country than last spring's outbreaks in major cities such as New York and Seattle.
She recommended that people living in communities where cases are surging to wear a mask at home if they live with someone who is especially vulnerable because of age or underlying medical conditions.
"What we are seeing today is... extraordinarily widespread," she said on CNN's State of the Union news programme. "It is into the rural as equal urban areas. So, everybody who lives in a rural area, you are not immune."
Dr Birx stressed the significance of asymptomatic transmission, and said the White House coronavirus task force was working to make sure Americans in affected communities understood this risk.
"If you have an outbreak in your rural area or in your city, you need to really consider wearing a mask at home, assuming that you are positive if you have individuals in your home with co-morbidities" such as respiratory problems or diabetes.
Dr Birx said that in her recent travels, she had seen "all of America moving", making it doubly important for people to understand the risks. Infected people without symptoms can unwittingly seed numerous chains of infection.
"If you have chosen to go on vacation into a hot spot, you really need to come back and assume you are infected," she said. "By the time you wait for someone to come forward to the emergency room, you have widespread community spread."
In some communities seeing recent outbreaks, household transmission has been a huge factor, say public health experts.
Both Dr Birx and Admiral Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary at the US Department of Health and Human Services, emphasised the importance of prevention methods, such as large-scale mask-wearing, hand washing, and avoiding crowded indoor spaces and mass social gatherings.
On NBC's Meet the Press programme on Sunday, Adm Giroir said the efforts seemed to be helping in recent weeks to reduce cases in Arizona, Texas and Florida, which have been hard-hit this summer.
He repeatedly pointed to mask-wearing as perhaps the single most effective preventive measure.
"Wearing a mask is incredibly important, but we have to have like 85 per cent or 90 per cent of individuals wearing a mask and avoiding crowds," he said. "That essentially gives you the same outcome as a complete shutdown."
Asked if he was recommending a national mask mandate, Adm Giroir said: "The public health message is we have got to have mask-wearing.
"If we don't do that and if we don't limit the indoor crowded spaces, the virus will continue to run."
Global coronavirus cases surpassed 18 million yesterday as the pandemic now adds one million infections around every four days, with flare-ups prompting more lockdowns around the world.
NYTIMES, BLOOMBERG
