New York (AFP)
Making it mandatory to wear a mask everywhere in the United States could save the recovery of the world's largest economy, says investment bank Goldman Sachs, at a time when the pandemic is once again flaring up in the southern United States.
The report "Masks and GDP", published this week, considers that the compulsory wearing of masks, which many scientists believe that it can significantly reduce the transmission of the new coronavirus, "could partially replace" containment measures, which could cost GDP growth 5 percentage points.
Making it mandatory to wear a mask is not an easy task in a country where this attribute, or its absence, has often become an eminently political sign.
Thus the most fervent supporters of President Donald Trump rarely wear them. The President himself never wears it when the press could see it. Others invoke their virility, their freedom or even "the respiratory system that God has given us", as a lady did recently during a municipal audience in Florida. A security guard was even shot for asking a customer to cover his face before entering the store.
Since the strong resurgence of the Covid-19 in Florida, Texas, Arizona or even in southern California, tenors of the President's party have called for the wearing of the mask and are now covering their faces in public.
Making wearing compulsory "is a political decision," say the authors of the report, who say that new cases of Covid-19 are increasing by 17.3% per week in countries where wearing is not compulsory and of 7.3% only in countries where it is.
They claim that in the United States, the most lax states in terms of wearing a mask are responsible for two thirds of new infections. Mandatory wearing could drop the increase in daily infections from 2.9% to 1%.
"Be that as it may, our analysis suggests that the economy could benefit greatly from such a decision, especially when we compare it to the alternative: a return to large-scale containment," say the authors.
© 2020 AFP