As California prepares to lift the universal mask mandate for indoor public places, a UCSD health expert is urging the public to wait a few more weeks before they unmask.
"I feel like we're repeating history. We did this last June and it didn't go so well, we ended up with delta." Dr. Kim Prather, Director of the NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment at the University of California, San Diego, told KCBS Radio's "As An Expert" on Friday. "Every time we open up the opportunities for this virus to spread, it takes advantage of those."
Prather said she wants to get mask wearing and COVID-19 precautions over with as much as anyone else, but cautioned that lifting mask requirements too early may cause another surge, creating further confusion when the masks must then go back on.
"I keep hoping I'll be wrong and I keep hoping, like everyone else, this is the time, but my gut feeling is just let the numbers get a little lower," she said.
To help avoid future COVID-19 outbreaks, Prather recommends that indoor businesses and schools filter their air.
A key to fighting coronavirus is air filtration using CR boxes, Prather wrote in a Twitter post. "If that was done I wouldn't be as worried, but the reason I'm concerned is because most places still have not cleaned their indoor air," she explained.
She said it's difficult to predict when she believes it would be appropriate to lift mask mandates, but the lower the better.
"The numbers are plummeting, they're going in the right direction," she said. "A couple more weeks would make a massive difference."
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