A person wears a protective face mask outside a store in Brooklyn, New York on June 25, 2020. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images) SEATTLE - If almost everyone wears a mask in public over the next few months, tens of thousands of lives could be saved in the United States, according to a widely-cited coronavirus pandemic model used by the White House.Researchers are forecasting that more than 179,000 Americans will die by Oct.
1. That number drops to around 146,000 people if at least 95% of people wear masks — a difference of 33,000 lives.The projections comparing different actions to control the spread of COVID-19 are from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.Dr.