About 3 out of 10 Americans should continue to wear them masks Inland public areas, including schools, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, but millions more no longer need it, based on a new guide that incorporates federal COVID-19 data from hospitals.
The agency’s new recommendations come when an increasing number of sites have already been relocated Mask lift requirements, as cases plummeted following the wave of Omicron variants last month. The changes represent one of the biggest changes in the agency’s COVID-19 orientation in months since the CDC said last year that even vaccinated Americans should wear masks indoors in areas the agency believes are at “substantial” or “high” transmission levels.
Now, Americans in parts of the country felt they had “low” levels of the disease, currently around 29.5% of the population, no longer need to wear masks inside, according to the new CDC framework. Residents of “medium” at-risk counties (about 42.2% of the country’s population) should wear masks if they are at increased risk for serious illness, such as those with compromised immune systems. People in counties with a “high” level (about 28.2% of Americans) should still wear a mask inside.
- Check your county’s risk level here
“Communities can use these metrics, along with their own local metrics, such as wastewater monitoring, emergency department visits, and workforce capacity, to further update and inform their local policies. “Greta Massetti of the CDC told reporters at a news conference Friday about the new measures.
Although the daily rate of new cases has slowed by more than 90% nationwide since the peak of the Omicron wave last month, the vast majority of counties were still in the red zone of transmission. “high” according to the agency’s original COVID-19 metrics. .
These thresholds date back to the first year of the pandemic, before vaccinations, previous infections, and growing supplies of effective treatments for the disease reduced the severity of the threat.
“With the widespread immunity of the population, the overall risk of serious illness is generally lower. Now, as the virus continues to circulate in our communities, we need to focus our metrics beyond the cases on the community and target the community. “Our efforts to protect people at high risk for serious illness and prevent COVID-19 from overwhelming our hospitals,” said CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
Walensky and Massetti said the new benchmarks will be updated weekly county by county. They give more weight to the rate of hospitalizations in a community than just the number of infections. A presentation describing the agency’s analysis of the new formula concluded that it has “higher correlations with mortality rates” three weeks into the future, compared to its previous benchmarks.
The average number of patients with COVID-19 in hospitals has fallen by more than 60% from a record high during the Omicron wave last month. For those who were hospitalized, studies published by the agency suggest that patients were less likely to suffer from severe illness with Omicron compared to the Delta variant.
Many parts of the country had already moved to ease their mask rules before the new CDC guidance, since the uprising state mandates to go back rules in schoolsbased on similar assessments of the danger of the disease.
“Omicron was a game changer, when it came not just to the number of cases you had in a community, but to the severity of the disease,” said Dr. Umair Shah, Secretary of State for Health. Washington, in an interview before the publication of the final guide.
Washington State announced plans earlier this month to lift interior mask requirements in March. Shah said the CDC had held “ongoing talks” with state health officials across the country as they drafted their new metrics, but did not share final details on how their guidance would strike a balance for recommendations for protection. vulnerable people in situations such as schools and workplaces. .
“We are the ones who have to interpret or implement what the guide is. What has happened here is that the CDC has put a lot of effort into visiting state health officials, ongoing meetings to discuss with them, what does the future hold? ” said Sha.
The agency said its new COVID-19 metrics will “report” new recommendations and be implemented indoors in places like schools, but did not provide details on how other parts of the COVID-19 guide could change. agency.
On Friday afternoon, the CDC said it would lift the federal mask requirement on school buses, although rules for other parts of the trip, such as airports and train stations, will remain in effect at least next month. Guidelines for hospitals and nursing homes remain tied to the agency’s old community transmission thresholds, the CDC said.
The agency said its new COVID-19 metrics will “inform” new recommendations, but did not provide details on how it could specifically change the agency’s guidance. For now, masks are still needed in schools in areas with “high” levels of disease, as well as at airports and trains.
Federal health officials say they consulted with a wide range of external experts and local officials to make their new recommendations. It arrives in the midst of a greater bent effort “COVID Next” to re-evaluate their surveillance strategies so that they are “appropriate for this current stage of the pandemic.”
For example, a coalition of public health organizations announced last month that it supported ending the widespread tracking of COVID-19 contacts, as some state and county health authorities had already done, in exchange for ” a more strategic approach to outbreak investigations and targeted case investigations. ” ”
Amid concerns that the growing use of rapid home testing would distort federal virus records, which are based on laboratory-tested COVID-19 testing, the CDC has also promoted efforts to increase alternative ways to monitor trends in disease as evidence. wastewater samples to measure virus levels in wastewater. However, not all communities have access to this data.
“Have we reviewed all data sources and really evaluated them based on various criteria, such as measuring serious illness or health stress? To what extent do they provide data available locally, where can they really inform local decisions?” said Massetti.
Federal health officials warn that slow-moving COVID metrics could be reversed if new concerns arise.
BA.2, the Omicron underline that has grown to dominate infections in some foreign countries, has grown slowly to account for about 4% of new infections in the U.S.
Although international health authorities say there is no clear evidence that BA.2 leads to more serious infections, data from several countries suggest it could spread more quickly. The Food and Drug Administration has also questioned whether at least one of the effective monoclonal antibody drugs currently works against the subvariant.
“We want to give people a break from things like wearing a mask when the levels are low, and then have the ability to look for them again if things get worse in the future,” Walensky said.
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