CDC reportedly set to recommend everyone wear face masks outside

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a recommendation Thursday to wear face coverings when going outside, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reportedly set to do the same.

The public should use homemade cloth face coverings when outside and reserve medical-grade masks for health care workers, a draft CDC document obtained by Stat News reveals. A CDC official later told The New York Times the same guidance would soon be issued.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti already told his city to wear masks on Wednesday. Like the CDC guidelines are set to recommend, de Blasio told New Yorkers not to buy N95 masks that hospital workers desperately need.

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The White House's top coronavirus doctor Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that the CDC would consider issuing a mask recommendation once they were more widely available and that the coronavirus task force would be discussing the proposal that day.