Government officials in the Netherlands say they will not advise citizens to wear masks to stop the spread of the coronavirus, claiming there is a lack of evidence showing they are effective.
“Because, from a medical perspective, there is no proven effectiveness of masks, the Cabinet has decided that there will be no national obligation for wearing nonmedical masks,” Minister for Medical Care Tamara van Ark said in a Wednesday announcement, according to Reuters.
Instead, the Dutch government will focus on social distancing rules following an uptick in confirmed cases this week, van Ark said.
The head of the Netherlands’s National Institute for Public Health, Jaap van Dissel, added that the organization is aware that some studies show masks can help slow the spread of the virus, but he argued the evidence isn’t conclusive and that masks can actually increase the likelihood of transferring the disease if not worn properly.
“So we think that if you’re going to use masks in a public setting, … then you must give good training for it,” he said.
Health officials in Denmark, another country that doesn’t require masks, are finalizing a study to be released next month on the effectiveness of face masks to determine what the requirements should be going forward.
“All these countries recommending face masks haven’t made their decisions based on new studies,” Danish health official Henning Bundgaard, who is leading the study, said. He added that the only effective face covering might be a visor because the virus can travel through eyes and cloth masks might provide a “false sense of security.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert in the United States, told ABC News on Wednesday that he recommends people wear goggles or face shields to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Wearing face masks has become a hot-button issue in the U.S., with many states recently issuing mandatory face-mask mandates, which is consistent with the latest recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Still, some studies show that cloth masks are ineffective and sometimes even counterproductive.
In the U.S., people are divided on the issue after several physical altercations occurred nationwide regarding mask mandates, including people being removed from passenger jets for refusing to comply and a man allegedly pointing a gun at a fellow Walgreens customer over a mask dispute earlier this month.
