Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks under new U.S. guidelines released Friday.<\/p>\n
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what\u2019s happening at hospitals.<\/p>\n
The new system greatly changes the look of the CDC\u2019s risk map and puts more than 70% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are the people who can stop wearing masks, the agency said.<\/p>\n
The agency is still advising people, including schoolchildren, to wear masks where the risk of COVID-19 is high. That\u2019s the situation in about 37% of U.S. counties, where about 28% of Americans live. <\/p>\n
The new recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation and indoors in airports, train stations and bus stations. The CDC guidelines for other indoor spaces aren\u2019t 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\u2019t stop wearing masks. <\/p>\n
But with protection from immunity rising\u2014both from vaccination and infection\u2014the overall risk of severe disease is now generally lower, the CDC said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnybody is certainly welcome to wear a mask at any time if they feel safer wearing a mask,\u201d CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a news briefing. \u201cWe want to make sure our hospitals are OK and people are not coming in with severe disease. … Anyone can go to the CDC website, find out the volume of disease in their community and make that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey, are at low to medium risk while others such as West Virginia, Kentucky, Florida and Arizona still have wide areas at high levels of concern.<\/p>\n
CDC\u2019s previous transmission-prevention guidance to communities focused on two measures\u2014the rate of new COVID-19 cases and the percentage of positive test results over the previous week. <\/p>\n
Based on those measures, agency officials advised people to wear masks indoors in counties where spread of the virus was deemed substantial or high. As of this week, more than 3,000 of the nation\u2019s more than 3,200 counties\u2014greater than 95%\u2014were listed as having substantial or high transmission under those measures. <\/p>\n
That guidance has increasingly been ignored, however, with states, cities, counties and school districts across the U.S. announcing plans to drop mask mandates amid declining COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.<\/p>\n
With many Americans already taking off their masks, the CDC\u2019s shift won\u2019t make much practical difference for now, said Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at the University of California, Irvine. But it will help when the next wave of infection\u2014a likelihood in the fall or winter\u2014starts threatening hospital capacity again, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be more waves of COVID. And so I think it makes sense to give people a break from masking,\u201d Noymer said. \u201cIf we have continual masking orders, they might become a total joke by the time we really need them again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CDC is offering a color-coded map\u2014with counties designated as orange, yellow or green\u2014to help guide local officials and residents. In green counties, local officials can drop any indoor masking rules. Yellow means people at high risk for severe disease should be cautious. Orange designates places where the CDC suggests masking should be universal.<\/p>\n
How a county comes to be designated green, yellow or orange will depend on its rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions, the share of staffed hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and the rate of new cases in the community.<\/p>\n
Taking hospital data into account has turned some counties\u2014such as Boulder County, Colorado\u2014from high risk to low.<\/p>\n
Mask requirements already have ended in most of the U.S. in recent weeks. Los Angeles on Friday began allowing people to remove their masks while indoors if they are vaccinated, and indoor mask mandates in Washington state and Oregon will be lifted in late March.<\/p>\n
In a sign of the political divisions over masks, Florida\u2019s governor on Thursday announced new recommendations called \u201cBuck the CDC\u201d that actually discourage mask wearing.<\/p>\n
In Pennsylvania, acting health secretary Keara Klinepeter urged \u201cpatience and grace\u201d for people who choose to continue masking in public, including those with weakened immune systems. She said she\u2019ll keep wearing a mask because she\u2019s pregnant.<\/p>\n
State health officials are generally pleased with the new guidance and \u201cexcited with how this is being rolled out,\u201d said Dr. Marcus Plescia of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the way we need to go. I think this is taking us forward with a new direction going on in the pandemic,\u201d Plescia said. \u201cBut we\u2019re still focusing on safety. We\u2019re still focusing on preventing death and illness.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CDC said the new system will be useful in predicting future surges and urged communities with wastewater surveillance systems to use that data too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf or when new variants emerge or the virus surges, we have more ways to protect ourselves and our communities than ever before,\u201d Walensky said.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
Associated Press writer Michael Rubinkam contributed.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n
CARLA K. JOHNSON and MIKE STOBBE (Associated Press)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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