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CDC recommends wearing masks in public as Trump undercuts recommendation

2005 James Gathany This photograph depicted an exterior view of Building 21, located at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, headquarters, also referred to as the Roybal Campus. Situated in Atlanta, Georgia, this view was from the campus’ entrance. From downtown Atlanta, the CDC moved its location to Clifton Road after earlier construction had been completed in 1960. In 1947, Emory University donated the land on Clifton Road for the organization’s new headquarters.

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 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…

Read the full story in The New York Times here: