One of the latest recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding the coronavirus pandemic is for people to wear cloth masks whenever out in public.

However, Dallas County Health Department Public Information Officer Ann Cochran says that advice is geared specifically for those living in dense urban centers like New York City or Chicago. In a smaller city like Des Moines, and especially in small town Iowa, Cochran says wearing a face mask whenever outdoors isn’t a necessity. “Typically, here in our communities, we do not walk down a crowded sidewalk in order to get to the grocery store. We’re in our own car, and our grocery stores are not that packed that we’d have to be face-to-face with others. Certainly if you feel more comfortable wearing a cloth mask, that’s something you can do. One of the cautions is to be aware of how you put it on and take it off again. If you are taking off a mask that you’ve been wearing in public, that mask might have germs on it so it’s important for you to wash your hands after you take the mask off.”

Cochran also advises people to wash their mask every few days, or more often depending on how frequently you wear it and the environment you’re wearing it in. If you wear a mask every day while riding in a crowded bus, for example, she says it would be worth your while to wash it every evening. To learn more about this and other COVID-19 topics, click the link below to listen to the recent Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program with Cochran.

https://www.raccoonvalleyradio.com/2020/04/08/lets-talk-dallas-county-4-8-2020-ann-cochran/