Election 2020: What kind of mask should you wear to vote in-person?

The former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner says those voting in person in Tuesday’s general election should be sure to wear a mask when they go to cast their ballot, and they need to find a quality one to keep themselves safe.

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Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who was interviewed by CBS’s “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, suggested that people who will be standing in line to cast ballots to look for the highest quality mask they can find -- ideally an N95 mask if they can find one.

“A cloth mask may be 10% to 30% protective,” Gottlieb said. "A surgical mask, a level-two or level-three surgical mask, procedure mask, maybe about 60% effective.

“An N95 mask or an equivalent like a KN95 mask, which is the Chinese equivalent, or what we call an FFP2 mask, which is a European equivalent to an N95, that could be 90 to 95% protective,” Gottlieb said.

Amid a surge in COVID-19 cases across the country, Gottlieb reminded those planning to go to polling places that while election officials are taking precautions to keep voters safe, you should be sure to wear a mask when you go to cast your ballot.

“I think when you go out to vote, the voting places are taking precautions,” Gottlieb said. "They’re sequencing people carefully. They’re cleaning the voting stations in between voters. Their lines are going to be long, but they’re going to take precautions inside those settings.

“And I think when people go out to vote, if they wear a high quality mask, they can adequately protect themselves,” he said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people “wear masks in public settings, like on public and mass transportation, at events and gatherings, and anywhere they will be around other people.”

In addition, the CDC suggests the public:

• Wear masks with two or more layers
• Wear the mask over your nose and mouth and secure it under your chin
• Wear a mask if you’re age 2 or older

According to the CDC website, the agency does not recommend the use of face shields alone.

More than 94 million people have already voted both in person and by mail, according to the U.S. Elections Project.

State election officials report that they are finalizing procedures to keep voters safe as they come to the polls.

Linn County (Iowa) Election Supervisor Stacey Walker encouraged people to cast their ballot but said they should take safety precautions at polling places to protect themselves and their neighbors.

“We can’t afford to have Election Day serve as a super spreading event across the state and country,” Walker told the AP.

At a news conference last week, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate said his office had distributed 145,000 gloves, 200,000 masks and 11,000 social-distancing markers for use by voters and poll workers, the AP reported.

According to Johns Hopkins University, more than 9.2 million coronavirus cases have been diagnosed in the U.S., with 231,000 Americans dying from the virus.

Cox Media Group