In a media telebriefing, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced it is relaxing its mask recommendation for most of the country. The video above includes clips from the telebriefing, as well as reaction from medical experts. The relaxation comes as the CDC updated its COVID-19 risk map to show 72% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. According to the CDC, those people can stop wearing masks. The other 28% of people, including schoolchildren, who live in the 37% of counties where the risk is high are still advised to wear masks in public.
“Please remember that there are people who remain at higher risk for COVID-19 and who may need additional protection, those who are immunocompromised or have underlying health conditions,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at Friday’s telebriefing. “Those who have disabilities or those who live with people who are at risk, those people might choose to take extra precautions regardless of what level their community is in.”
The relaxing of it mask recommendations do not change the CDC requirement to wear masks on public transportation and indoors in airports, train stations and bus stations. The agency also says people with COVID-19 symptoms or who test positive shouldn’t stop wearing masks.
While it appears to be a significant shift in its mask policy, University of California, Irvine public health professor Andrew Noymer said the new recommendation likely won’t have much of an immediate impact because many Americans have already ditched their masks. However, he added it will help when the next wave of COVID-19 starts threatening hospital capacity again.
“After Thanksgiving of 2022, you know, it’s very likely that we’ll need to ask people to put their masks back on. And it’s just more likely to happen if if people get some summer months off than if we just say masked all the time,” Noymer said. “If we have continual masking orders that they might become a total joke by the time we really need them again. And so I think it makes sense to keep our powder dry, so to speak.”
