Universal Masking in the Covid-19 Era

We understand that some people are citing our Perspective article (published on April 1 at NEJM.org)(1) as support for discrediting widespread masking. In truth, the intent of our article was to push for more masking, not less. It is apparent that many people with SARS-CoV-2 infection are asymptomatic or presymptomatic yet highly contagious and that these people account for a substantial fraction of all transmissions.(2,3) Universal masking helps to prevent such people from spreading virus-laden secretions, whether they recognize that they are infected or not.(4) We did state in the article that "wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers . . .