The government may no longer require North Carolinians to wear masks in public, but putting them on could help prevent thousands of coronavirus cases and deaths by the end of the year, reports the Greensboro News & Record. Research from three state universities have created a computer model that predicts coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths under various scenarios. According to the model, abandoning mask wearing among other preventive measures will result in a rise in coronavirus cases.
David Wohl, MD, professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, was not involved with the model but says its forecasts are plausible. Even with 50% of the population vaccinated against COVID-19, masking and other preventive measures are still needed to save lives, Wohl said.
“Fifty percent is great,” he said in the article. “But we really need much more than that to prevent the kind of surge that is being predicted in this model.”
Read the article here.