{"id":9517,"date":"2020-05-06T09:17:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T06:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=9517"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:02","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:02","slug":"african-countries-are-moving-to-make-masks-mandatory-key-questions-answered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/05\/06\/african-countries-are-moving-to-make-masks-mandatory-key-questions-answered\/","title":{"rendered":"African Countries Are Moving to Make Masks Mandatory &#8211; Key Questions Answered"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Many countries, including South Africa and Nigeria in Africa, are moving to make it&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.enca.com\/news\/south-africans-must-wear-masks-after-lockdown-eases-dlamini-zuma\">mandatory<\/a>&nbsp;to wear non-medical cloth masks when people are outside their homes. The move is seen as a vital additional measure to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wearing cloth masks is being introduced in conjunction with maintaining a physical distance of at least 1.5 metres and strictly following hygiene measures such as hand washing, good cough etiquette, and decontamination of regularly used surfaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Medical face masks have been a vital part of COVID-19 prevention efforts in East Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In countries where medical face masks are preserved for healthcare workers or are scarce,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/prevent-getting-sick\/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html\">fabric face masks<\/a>&nbsp;provide a cost-effective alternative. These can be homemade and are reusable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There has been a growing movement of homemade mask production. Factories have also repurposed to produce fabric face masks to support commercial and free distribution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In South Africa wearing a cloth mask in public places is now mandatory. In our view, there is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7185834\/pdf\/nn0c03252.pdf\">sufficient evidence<\/a>\u00a0to suggest if everyone wears a mask, droplet transmission from each person will reduce and minimise exposure. <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/african-countries-are-moving-to-make-masks-mandatory-key-questions-answered-137516\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many countries, including South Africa and Nigeria in Africa, are moving to make it&nbsp;mandatory&nbsp;to wear non-medical cloth masks when people are outside their homes. The move is seen as a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}