Dr. Fauci says it might be time to mandate masks as coronavirus cases surge across the US

The rise in the number of coronavirus cases has led to renewed calls for mask mandate. On Friday alone, 32 states saw a sudden increase in the number of reported COVID-19 cases. The University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said the country was entering a winter surge as new infections passed 75,000 in a single day on Friday and more than 800 deaths were reported.

As mask mandate debate rages, Dr. Anothony Fauci says it might be time to mandate masks as Covid-19 surges across the US. In an interview with CNN on Friday, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert told CNN’s Erin Burnett: “Well, if people are not wearing masks, then maybe we should be mandating it.” However, Dr. Fauci cautioned that he doesn’t think a federal law would be the way to go. Dr. Fauci added that enforcing mask mandates may be tricky, but it might be time to call for them.

“There’s going to be a difficulty enforcing it, but if everyone agrees that this is something that’s important and they mandate it and everybody pulls together and says, you know, we’re going to mandate it but let’s just do it, I think that would be a great idea to have everybody do it uniformly,” he said.

Back in July, Dr. Fauci also told Alabama Sen. Doug Jones saying, “I don’t like to be authoritarian from the federal government, but at the local level, if governors and others essentially mandate the use of masks when you have an outbreak, I think that would be very important.”

In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, ‘There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask.” Since then, over 200 thousand Americans have died from the deadly virus. Dr. Fauci later changed his tune encouraging people to wear masks as part of safety measures to slow the spread of the virus.