Gates Package — page 984

Although 60,000 people died before the outbreak had run its course, the consensus was that Wu's strategy had prevented it from being much worse. He was celebrated as a national hero, and thanks in large part to his leadership, masks became a common sight--as protection against disease, air pollution, or both--throughout China. Even if COVID had not happened, they would still be part of the region's social fabric today. Just as Chinese experts were initially mistaken about how the 1910 plague was transmitted, much of the scientific community in the West was initially wrong about how COVID spread. ("The big mistake in the U.S. and Europe," the head of the Chinese CDC said in March 2020, "is that people aren't wearing masks.") For many people who were following the research--people in the West, at least--the case in favor of masks was sealed by an incident involving two hairstylists in Springfield, Missouri.26 Both stylists developed symptoms and tested positive for COVID in May 2020. Their records indicated that they had exposed 139 clients. But everyone had masked up during the haircuts, and not a single client developed symptoms. Was that because the stylists weren't transmitting the virus? No. One of them had four close contacts outside the salon--when the stylist wasn't wearing a mask--who developed symptoms and tested positive. That settled the question. Like a good set of barber shears, masks were cutting transmission. The Springfield incident shows how masks can actually serve two purposes: to prevent an infected person from spreading the disease, and to protect an uninfected person from getting it. The first is called source control, and the beauty of it is that almost any mask of any type is good at source control, at least for certain diseases. Even a cotton T-shirt over your nose and mouth