The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now is reportedly revisiting earlier guidance to skip a mask in public. Sources told The Washington Post that its new guidance would make clear that the general public should reserve medical masks, including surgical and N95 masks, for health care workers, but that the public might consider using do-it-yourself cloth coverings, the Post reported.

The shift has been driven by the rapid surge in “community spread” — in which the virus is assumed to be so common in a given area that it can infect a person with no known connection to the illness.

That “changed the equation,” said Dr. Russell Lampen, who leads infection control for Spectrum Health in West Michigan.

Social distancing, hand-washing and good hygiene are still the best ways to protect yourself, Lampen and Sims said. But masks may protect others from being infected if you’re infected, an added protection, especially when you show no symptoms of the disease.

In a study published March 16, researchers concluded that 86 percent of COVID-19 cases were unreported prior to the travel shutdown to and from Wuhan, China, January 23. That’s because the carriers were mildly sick or not at all.

Researchers estimated that it was by this “stealth transmission” that people with mild, limited, or no symptoms who went undetected fueled two-thirds of documented infections.

“Common sense would say wear a mask,” said Bob Kingon, a retired deputy director of policy at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who now lives in Traverse City.

Kingon wears a mask on the rare occasion he goes out in public, such as Tuesday, when he dropped by the local post office.

The problem is there’s inadequate data to back up what may seem like common sense — that even home-made masks are better than nothing among the general public in the event of a community spread pandemic, Kingon said.

Reliable sources of medical advice, such as the National Institutes of Health, tend to only dispense medical advice after careful consideration of robust research, he said.

“They’ll look at the evidence and say “Where’s the proof?” If the science isn’t there, they’re not going to make recommendations.”

As the coronavirus began seeping from its hotspot in China in January into the rest of the world, health care providers began scrambling for N-95 respirators and other medical-grade masks.

Consumers did, too, driving fears of hoarding and accusations of price-gouging. The CDC, World Health Organization and others pleaded with consumers to leave the specialized masks for health care workers.