2 Hair Stylists With The Virus Wore Masks. So Did Their 140 Clients. Of Those Tested, None Got Sick

In Missouri, two hair stylists who tested positive for COVID-19 after working in close contact with 140 clients and six coworkers. Local health officials feared it would be the start of a major outbreak.

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But it wasn’t.

The reason? Employees and patrons at the Great Clips salon were required to wear masks, health officials said.

“The result appears to be one of the clearest real-world examples of the ability of masks to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus,” the Washington Post wrote this month. Local health officials are studying the details of the Springfield, Missouri, incident, including what types of face coverings were used and what other precautions were taken.

The fact that none of the exposed people became ill “is something we need to think about,” said Dr. Claudia Hoyen, director of pediatric infection control at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.

“There are definite lessons we can learn from this,” Hoyen said. “This is a good example of why we all should be wearing masks.”

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 spreads when infected persons expel the virus in airborne droplets while talking or coughing. When people wear a mask, fewer droplet are released, and the ones that are released don’t travel as far, Hoyen said.

“I believe masks play a role in protecting people from the coronavirus,” she said.

The salon’s policies of spreading out patron’s chairs, staggering appointments and other measures, also helped prevent the spread of the disease, local health officials said.

When MetroHealth System’s Dr. Nick Dreher heard about what happened at the Great Clips hair salon, he wondered — were they lucky, or were they smart?

There was some luck involved, but also smart choices in the form of social distancing, sanitizing tools and surfaces, and requiring masks, said Dreher, medical director of the Population Health Innovation Institute at MetroHealth.

“They did a lot of things right,” he said.

Social distancing and other measures don’t afford 100% protection from COVID-19, but they do help, Dreher said.

All those who had close contact with the sick hair stylists in Missouri were offered free testing but only 46 agreed to be tested. Dreher called the incident “a good outcome, not a perfect outcome,” because not everyone in the pool of 140 people were tested.

While mask-wearing may have averted an outbreak in Missouri, the opposite happened recently in Florida.

A group of 16 friends tested positive for the illness after celebrating a birthday in a crowded bar. At least seven bar employees have also reportedly tested positive for the disease, according to news reports. Members of the birthday group said no one was wearing masks.

New research is also examining the effectiveness of wearing a face covering in slowing the spread of COVID-19.

Scientists at University of California, San Diego, Caltech and Texas A&M looked at the world’s three COVID-19 epicenters: Wuhan, China; Italy, and New York City. They saw that in Wuhan, where mask-wearing is part of the culture, the spread was relatively slow. But case numbers continued to climb in Italy and New York City, despite lockdown and stay-at-home orders.

A separate study funded by the World Health Organization and recently published in the journal Lancet reviewed more than 170 studies and found evidence that wearing face coverings reduces the risk of COVID-19 infection.

Hoyen hopes the examples in Florida and Missouri, combined with new research, make wearing a mask more acceptable.

“If everybody wears masks, we’re all much more protected,” she said.

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