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Washington, Feb. 26 (BUS) – Most Americans are living in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks according to new US guidelines released Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has outlined a new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip, with less focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening in hospitals, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
The new system dramatically changes the appearance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s risk map and places more than 70% of the US population in counties where the coronavirus poses a low or moderate threat to hospitals. These are the people who can stop wearing masks, the agency said.
The agency still advises people, including schoolchildren, to wear masks where the risk of contracting COVID-19 is high. This is the situation in about 37% of US counties, where about 28% of Americans live.
The new recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transport and indoors at airports, train stations and bus stations. The CDC’s guidelines for other indoor spaces are not binding, which means that cities and organizations even in low-risk areas may set their own rules. The agency says that people with symptoms of COVID-19 or who have tested positive for the virus should not stop wearing masks.
But with increased protection from immunity — whether from vaccination or infection — the overall risk of developing severe disease is now lower overall, the CDC said.
“A person should definitely wear a mask at any time if they feel safer wearing the mask,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walinsky said at a news briefing. We want to make sure that our hospitals are okay and that people don’t get severely ill. …Anyone can go to the CDC’s website, find out the extent of the disease in their community and make that decision. “
Some states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey, are at low to moderate risk while others such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Florida and Arizona still have large areas at high levels of concern.
The CDC’s previous transmission prevention guidelines for communities focused on two metrics — the rate of new COVID-19 cases and the percentage of positive test results during the previous week.
Based on these measures, agency officials have advised people to wear masks indoors in counties where the spread of the virus is considered significant or high. As of this week, more than 3,000 of the country’s more than 3,200 counties – more than 95% – are listed as having high or high transmission under these measures.
However, this guidance has been increasingly ignored, as states, cities, counties, and school districts across the US have announced plans to drop mask mandates amid a decline in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
With so many Americans already taking off their masks, the CDC’s shift won’t make much practical difference right now, said Andrew Noemer, a professor of public health at the University of California, Irvine. But he said it would help when the next wave of infections – likely in the fall or winter – starts to threaten the hospital’s capacity again.
“There will be more waves of COVID. And so I think it makes sense to give people a break from wearing a mask,” Neumer said. “If we have constant concealment orders, it could become a complete joke by the time we really need it again.”
The CDC offers a color-coded map — with counties marked in orange, yellow or green — to help guide local officials and residents. In green counties, local officials can forgo any indoor concealment rules. The yellow color means that people at high risk of developing severe disease should be careful. Orange indicates places where the CDC suggests concealment should be universal.
How a county is designated green, yellow, or orange will depend on the rate of new hospital admissions for COVID-19, the share of staffed hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and the rate of new cases in the community.
Taking hospital data into account has shifted some counties — such as Boulder County, Colorado — from high to low risk.
Mask requirements have already expired in most of the United States in recent weeks. Los Angeles on Friday began allowing people to remove their masks while indoors if they have been vaccinated, and indoor mask mandates will be lifted in Washington and Oregon in late March.
In a sign of political divisions over masks, Florida’s governor on Thursday announced new recommendations called “Pac-CDC” that actually discourage the wearing of masks.
In Pennsylvania, Acting Health Secretary Keira Kleinpeter urged “patience and grace” for people who choose to continue to wear masks in public, including those with compromised immune systems. She said she will continue to wear the mask because she is pregnant.
State health officials are generally happy with the new guidance and “excited about how this is coming up,” said Dr. Marcus Plesia of the Association of State and County Health Officials.
“This is the way we need to go. I think this is moving us forward in a new direction that is happening in the pandemic,” Plesia said. “But we remain focused on safety. We remain focused on preventing death and disease.”
The CDC said the new system would be useful in predicting future surges and urged communities with wastewater monitoring systems to use this data as well.
“If new variants emerge or the virus spreads, or when it does, we have more ways to protect ourselves and our communities than ever before,” Walinsky said.
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