Here is a look at the different policies adopted by various health organisations and countries on the usage of face masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19 —

1 The United States of America The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday changed its guidelines on the use of face masks as a preventive measure against the spread of coronavirus disease. The US-based health organisation, which had earlier maintained that face masks should only be worn by infected people and by others who are in close proximity of a positive person, changed its policy to recommend wearing face mask by everyone who is in a public place.



CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.



Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.

2 East Asia Both Japan and Hong Kong have been somewhat successful in hampering the outbreak of coronavirus. Both these countries have adopted liberal guidelines on the use of face masks along with a host of other measures. Earlier this week, the Japanese government announced that every household will be given a pair of reusable versions of cloth face masks. In Hong Kong, not only are the locals wearing them but are also sending masks to their relatives and friends who are staying abroad.



Keiji Fukuda, director and clinical professor at the University of Hong Kong's School of Public Health, said people in the city see wearing a mask "as a way that the individual is trying to protect both the larger society as well as the self".



China, at the peak of the outbreak in February, made wearing face masks mandatory in at least two of its provinces — one of which was Hubei, the epicentre of coronavirus outbreak.

3 Europe In most of Europe, the governments have strictly enforced the use of masks by the general public.



Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had said he wanted larger supermarkets to start providing shoppers with masks. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has begun sporting one in public. The recent swearing-in of the new Slovakian government took place with all participants wearing face masks and gloves. Slovakia, Slovenia and the Czech Republic have all made masks obligatory in public spaces. Germany's health ministry said wearing masks might play a role when lifting lockdown measures.



While French authorities have stuck to the WHO guidance that healthy people do not need masks, the industry ministry's standardisation board posted a manufacturing blueprint on Friday. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has also said that textile and paper firms would now be encouraged to make masks.