New CDC Guidelines Suggest 70% Of Americans Can Stop Wearing Masks
The New York Times (2/25) reported that on Friday, the CDC “offered a new strategy to help communities across the country live with the coronavirus and get back to some version of normal life.” These “new guidelines suggest that 70 percent of Americans can now stop wearing masks, and no longer need to social distance or avoid crowded indoor spaces.” The new “recommendations no longer rely only on the number of cases in a community to determine the need for restrictions such as mask wearing,” but “instead, they direct counties to consider three measures to assess risk of the virus: new Covid-related hospital admissions over the previous week and the percentage of hospital beds occupied by Covid patients, as well as new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people over the previous week.”
The AP (2/25) reported, “The new recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation and indoors in airports, train stations and bus stations.” In addition, the “guidelines for other indoor spaces aren’t binding, meaning cities and institutions even in areas of low risk may set their own rules. And the agency says people with COVID-19 symptoms or who test positive shouldn’t stop wearing masks.”
CDC lifts mask recommendations for many | AAP News | American Academy of Pediatrics