NAIROBI — Tanzania’s new president, Samia Suluhu Hassan, on Friday stressed the importance of face masks in fighting COVID-19, ditching one of the most controversial policies of her late coronavirus-skeptic predecessor.
Hassan took office in March after the death of John Magufuli, who had urged Tanzanians to shun masks and denounced vaccines as a Western conspiracy, to the frustration of the World Health Organization.
Last month, she formed a committee to research whether Tanzania, which under Magufuli stopped reporting coronavirus data, should follow the course that the rest of the world has taken against the pandemic.
On Friday, wearing a face mask and flanked by senior …
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