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As health experts urge the public to wear masks to slow the spread of the coronavirus, they continue to get pushback. Among the arguments of skeptics: If masks can’t fully protect me against covid-19, what is the point of wearing them? Scientists’ counterargument is that masks can help reduce the severity of the disease caused by coronavirus even if you get infected. (Lin II, 7/28)

Researchers have long known that masks can prevent people from spreading airway germs to others. But now experts are pointing to evidence suggesting that masks also protect the people wearing them, lessening the severity of symptoms, or in some instances, staving off infection entirely. Different kinds of masks “block virus to a different degree, but they all block the virus from getting in,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. If any virus particles do breach these barriers, she said, the disease might still be milder. (7/27)

The 44-year-old man was chatting with his wife and son on a flight from Singapore to China earlier this year when he let his guard down, allowing his face mask to slip below his nose. That lapse appears to have been how he became infected with Covid-19. The case, cited in a recently published study of an outbreak among passengers on a January flight, is one of the first to document a probable transmission on an airliner and is reviving calls for government rules requiring masks. It comes as safety concerns raise questions about whether passengers will return in sufficient numbers to keep airline companies from collapsing. (Levin, 7/28)

It appears face masks are here to stay.The New York Times surveyed 511 epidemiologists, and more than half of them predicted that masks will be necessary for at least the next year, if not longer. Colleges are requiring students to wear masks on campus when classes start back up in the fall. The World Health Organization now recommends that everyone wear a mask while out in public. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says organizers of large gatherings should “strongly encourage” the use of masks at events. (Amenabar, 7/27)

Georgia’s governor said he’s withdrawing a request for an emergency hearing in a lawsuit that aims to block the state’s largest city from ordering people to wear masks in public or imposing other restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gov. Brian Kemp earlier this month sued Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the City Council, but a spokesman announced late Monday that the governor wanted “to continue productive, good faith negotiations.” As a result, the governor decided to withdraw the request for a hearing that was scheduled for Tuesday morning, spokesman Cody Hall said. (Brumback and Amy, 7/28)

Iowa physician groups are urging Gov. Kim Reynolds to order the public to wear masks as cases continue to rise. The Des Moines Register reports that the Iowa Medical Society and 14 other health-professional groups said Monday in a letter to the governor that “widespread use of cloth masks in public settings will dramatically slow the spread of COVID-19 and save lives.” (7/27)

Sarah Poe watched with rising alarm as coronavirus cases began to spiral last month in rural Malheur County, Ore., turning the remote region bright red on maps of hot spots. The county health director knew locals were ditching masks and isolation. But she also saw a threat directly across the Snake River: Idaho. Half the workforce in Malheur, where the minimum wage is $4 higher than across the border, lives in Idaho. Other Idahoans come for Oregon’s sales-tax-free shopping and legal marijuana. But the intermingling looks more menacing to Poe and other Malheur officials these days — because unlike in Oregon, masks are not mandated across the border and the coronavirus metrics there are far bleaker. Now, the public health department in that Oregon county has traced cases to origins in Idaho. (Brullliard and Weiner, 7/27)

Wyoming officials plan to distribute 500,000 face masks to school districts around the state to help schools reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.The cloth face coverings will be washable and help school districts to meet safety standards for reopening schools this fall, state officials said Monday. The Wyoming Department of Health and Wyoming Office of Homeland Security obtained the face masks through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Schools will get the face masks in early August. (7/27)

The coronavirus pandemic is reaching a plateau in some of the hardest-hit U.S. states after public officials imposed unpopular public-health measures, like closing bars and requiring masks. Now, those officials wonder whether they can force infection rates down again, as they did in the spring -- and this time, make them stick until a vaccine arrives. (Baker, Levin and Raimonde, 7/27)