U of M’s top infectious disease expert clears the air over his views on masks and COVID-19

Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, on Wednesday published a post making his stance on masks and COVID-19 clear: he supports the public wearing them.

It comes after he made previous statements about masks limiting virus transmission that others are now using to say he doesn’t support masks. He said he was simply pointing out that masks aren’t a cure for COVID-19 and that other things, such as social distancing, play a large role in transmission, too.

U of M’s top infectious disease expert says long-term COVID-19 immunity uncertain

In his post, Dr. Osterholm says he wants to clarify a few things:

• I support the wearing of cloth face coverings (masks) by the general public.
• Stop citing CIDRAP and me as grounds to not wear masks, whether mandated or not.
• Don’t, however, use the wearing of cloth face coverings as an excuse to decrease other crucial, likely more effective, protective steps, like physical distancing
• Also, don’t use poorly conducted studies to support a contention that wearing cloth face coverings will drive the pandemic into the ground. But even if they reduce infection risk somewhat, wearing them can be important.

To read his full statement from his Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy website, read below.

U of M’s top epidemiologist says Minnesota is ‘not out of the woods’ With COVID-19