Coronavirus: Surgeon general begs Fox News viewers to wear masks as case numbers continue to spike

'We are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say wear a face covering'

The US Surgeon General has begged Fox News viewers to wear face masks in an appearance on the network on Monday morning.

Dr Jerome Adams issued the simple but urgent plea on Fox & Friends emphasising the importance of personal responsibility to tackle the surge in coronavirus cases.

“It is pretty simple, but again it relies on the individual people of America doing the right thing, and that's why I'm pleading with your viewers. I'm begging you: Please understand we are not trying to take away your freedoms when we say wear a face covering,” he said.

He continued: “We're not trying to take away your ability to go out when we say keep restaurant capacity under 50 per cent. We're saying if we do these things we can actually open and stay open.”

In addition to face masks, Dr Adams also stressed the importance of social distancing, reminding viewers that, as Dr Deborah Birx had previously said: “If we're doing all these things, we can significantly turn things around in the course of a matter of weeks.”

The surgeon general confirmed that federal teams were being dispatched to cities currently struggling to cope with the number of cases of Covid-19 such as Houston, Miami, and Phoenix.

Dr Adams says that public health officials in the federal government are “all on the same page”.

In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Sunday, president Donald Trump, who has now been seen in public wearing a mask, said that he still believed that people should be free not to wear masks and that “masks cause problems, too”.

Polling from Gallup shows that whether or not individuals wear masks is split along party lines. Only 24 per cent of Republicans say they “always” hear a mask versus 61 per cent of Democrats.

By Monday the US had 3.77 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, and more than 140,000 officially recorded deaths.