While everyone agrees they are essential for first responders, there are mixed messages on whether we should all be wearing them.

Here's ABC, Steve O's and Saw Me.

All around the country, everyday Americans are joining the massive movement measure from the front of your ear to help health care workers.

It stays nice and snug to keep any germs out.

Even companies like Nordstrom are doing their part, helping populations higher risk of getting sick and helping people, just hoping for a little more protection.

And they're doing it one stitch at a time.

People like Sarah Mauer in Michigan have sown 60 masks for hospital workers So far.

I feel great being able to help in the way that I can become a family affair in the mire household in six days, Judy Conrad and their daughter, Natasha, have made almost 200 masks.

It's really amazing to see our community come together.

While there is no conclusive evidence that these homemade masks help prevent the spread of Kobe, 19 top health officials seem to think they may be more helpful than they once thought.

There is some rationale that the person in the street who may not know they're infected could actually prevent the spread to other people by wearing masks.

Even the president today says he's entertaining the idea.

I could see something like that happening for a period of time, but I would hope it would be a very limited period of time.

Their comments follow the recommendations of leading specialists from Asia, who are now saying that simple face masks and not hospital grade masks may have played a role in helping them contain the Corona virus outbreak.

The head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told Science magazine last Friday that the big mistake in the U.

S and Europe, in my opinion, is that people aren't wearing masks.

Many people have asymptomatic or pre symptomatic infections.

If they are wearing face masks, it can prevent droplets that carry the virus from escaping and infecting others.

People should be wearing a mask from from the data we've looked at whenever they go out in public, Jeremy Howard, a research scientist at the University of San Francisco, wrote an editorial in The Washington Post highlighting data from covert 19 success stories in Asian countries like South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, where everyone is wearing masks.

So I've analyzed 38 scientific papers that have looked at the relationship between using masks and the transmission off cove it 19 and similar kinds of viruses.

And they all tell the same story, which is that wearing a mask can decrease transmission by up to 50% s.

So that could be enough to massively slow the spread of this disease.

Our thanks to Steve O's and saw me now to dig deeper into the issue of masks.

Earlier, I got a chance to talk to ABC News chief medical correspondent Dr Jen Ashton.

Hey, Jen, how did you do?

Well, you know, there's a big difference between the end 95 mess we've all been hearing so much about versus the surgical mask vs A D I Y.

Or Do it yourself mass.

Can you clear up those differences for us?

Yes.

So I have two examples of them right here.

So let's start with the n 95.

They'll always say n 95 somewhere on this mask.

These masks are designed to keep viral particles out.

They actually have to be fit, tested to your face and with any mask.

They have to be used properly, or they can actually wind up doing more harm than good.

Now this is the routine surgical mask.

This is designed to actually keep viral particles in.

So that's why you hear we put these on sick patients to prevent them from spewing particles all over the room.

And then this is your run of the mill bandana, which recently, the CDC has said in a last resort, can even offer some degree of protection for health care workers.

Give us the do's and don'ts of how you wear these masks correctly because that's critical.

I have seen countless images on television, in print of people wearing surgical masks, and they're wearing them wrong.

They're wearing them like this, right?

It should.

This doesn't have to be above the no, this does not here, And it should be.

That's right.

And there's a little there's a firm kind of backbone in here, like a collar stay.

It should be pinched along the bridge of your nose, these thes and 90 five's, and I'm not gonna be able to totally put these on.

Now you'll see the two straps.

They both have to go on the back of your head.

One goes high up and one goes low down.

I've seen pictures of people wearing them like like this flapping around.

If you're not wearing it properly, you tend to touch your face more readjusted, and then you're introducing contact transmission, which is obviously another thing we're trying to avoid.

I know that D I.

Y patterns are all the rage as people are sitting at home wondering what, if anything, they can do what you make of the sort of do it yourself model of face masks.

And could that be something that could afford people?

Some level of protection?

So, first of all, I like the effort.

I like the intention.

I like where the people's minds and hearts are.

We don't really have such great data on that.

One study did show that with these fabric masks that they increase the risk of the person getting a respiratory infection.

13 fold.

But when you talk about data in general, it's all over the place.

You know, there's no data that suggests that wearing a surgical mask doesn't help, but there are some that show no difference between these two mass.

A lot of people are feeling like some protection is better than nothing.

And if the CDC says the bandanna will do in a pinch, I think a lot of people are reaching for fabric.

And I think in science were always looking to reassess, reanalyzed, reinvestigate and explore other things.

And it's important to keep an open mind in science and medicine, just like in life.

Well said, Thanks, Dr Jen, as always, for your wisdom.

Thanks.

D'oh!

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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