Public Health Experts Call On CDC To Change Its Mask Guidance

[riversedge]

Source: NPR




July 22, 20211:20 PM ET


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"This is the low season. It shouldn't be spreading as fast during summer," says Ali Mokdad, who tracks coronavirus trends at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. Respiratory diseases such as the flu and COVID-19 usually spike in the winter, when people spend much of their time sequestered indoors.

But now, in the blazing heat of summer, hospitals in some parts of the country are again getting slammed with COVID-19 patients. Holiday gatherings over the Fourth of July — which President Biden once hoped would mark the country's independence from the virus — may have fueled new outbreaks. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths are ticking up after a long decline.

Back in mid-May, when over a million new people were getting vaccinated each day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance declaring that it was safe — for fully vaccinated people — to shed their masks in most settings. "You can do things you stopped doing because of the pandemic," the CDC's director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said at the time.

Now, with vaccination progress stalling, a growing chorus of doctors and experts is saying the CDC let up on masking too early. They want the nation's public health agency to call for masking and mitigation measures in areas that are suffering, to stop the virus's spread..................................

Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/07/22/1019311989/public-health-experts-call-on-cdc-to-endorse-masking-indoors?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=npr&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews

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I agree. This surge has to stop. Masks and social distancing are once again needed

Link to tweet

?s=20


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't budged on its guidance that vaccinated people can skip mask-wearing, but some local governments faced with surging cases are going back to mandates, such as Los Angeles County, which recently mandated indoor mask use, including at places like bars and restaurants.
Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images

[Skittles]

1. I have said it all along

THE CDC DROPPED THE BALL, BIG TIME.

[DENVERPOPS]

3. No kidding Skittles

they have flip-flopped on tons of things, countless times since the virus was first recognized.

There are a majority of the people at CDC that are hard working true scientists, but the leadership's opinions seem to be controlled by politicians, not scientific facts.

[Orrex]

9. Absolutely

Their conflicting and ambiguous messages du jour have created an environment where you almost can’t blame the asshole mask-denier for rejecting the guidelines, which come across as vague and overly complex and seem more than anything to be subject to social/political pressure.

They should have kept the mask mandate in place until the pandemic is over. All else is a half-measure, like taking only 5 of your 10-day course of antibiotics.

[SergeStorms]

2. I've been using the 3 ply paper masks...

all along. I think it's time to bring out the N-95 masks I stockpiled during the past few months when things were better.

No way do I want to get a break through infection, not with my grandchildren being too young to be vaccinated right now. Pfizer says it could be mid- winter before the FDA gives the OK on a 5-12 ages vaccine.

I don't mind wearing a mask at all. I don't know what all the fuss is about. Let's think about others for a change, instead of concentrating on ME, ME, ME all the time.

[madville]

20. Yep, I think the simple cloth and surgical masks will be useless against Delta

Read today that the virus load of Delta is 1000x more than the Alpha strain, that’s why it’s so contagious. Guidance needs to be N95 or higher to make sure masking is effective with this strain.

[wnylib]

4. I agree about the need to wear masks, but

I don't understand why the article called summer "the low season." I get it that viruses spread in winter when people are inside more. But last summer covid was spiking in the Midwest and West and spreading to rural areas that had not bern affected before. And that was the alpha strain, before delta. In summer, people travel more, carrying a viral disease like covid with them.

Hot climate countries, like India, have been hit hard, too.

[SuperCoder]

5. I really want to be wrong...

But I fear the worst is yet to come.

Especially in Florida, where cases are already significant thanks to DeSantis' terrible terrible terrible policies on the virus and no restrictions there.

[wnylib]

7. I have similar concerns and hope that I am wrong.

I live in a mostly rural county that has two small cities, some rural villages, and a lot of farms. So we are off the beaten path, even though we are within easy driving distance of larger cities like Buffalo and Rochester. Last year it took longer for the original covid virus and then the alpha variant to reach us.

Our infection rate dropped considerably a few weeks after the vaccines became readily available, down to days at a time with zero new ones and zero hospitalizations. But our vaccination rate is only 45%. Very slowly, infections and hospitalizations are starting to move up again. The numbers are still very low, so nobody is concerned, except me.

People travel from here to Buffalo daily. Buffalo's infections are increasing, and the new ones are mostly delta. With our low vaccination rate, we are sitting ducks. I assume that there are asymptomatic delta carriers in my community, which is why I still mask up. I'm afraid it will hit hard here within a few weeks so I have stocked up again.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. I think they are saying it is the "low season" because in a way, it is...

I.e., per a plot like this -



Although the previously little affected MW, south, and rural areas of other states had a delay in their "first wave", they eventually experienced it by the summer of 2020. But because those areas of the country are much less populated than the coastal areas, the total number of cases from their delayed infections only served to produce what would be a "small" summer wave. Meanwhile the most populated areas were mitigating spread after their initial spring first waves, and were finally reaching their low points during the summer. But as those large population areas moved into the fall and winter, that sent the cases soaring more than double that of the summer wave.

So yes, the spread can happen any time of the year, but the dynamics of where (indoors or outdoors in crowded environments) and how physical contact happens, is going to impact the transmissions. While the lagging first wave areas got hit in the summer, often due to large events that weren't cancelled (like that Sturgis super-spreader event in South Dakota) versus what happened in the more populated areas during that summer (like last year's July 4th parades and other celebrations), you got that spread - even outdoors - in certain locations. It shows how "mitigation" can work.

[tanyev]

10. Yep, funny how that idea persists with Covid.

Everything I see indicates that it is people's behavior that determines how quickly Covid spreads. Period.

[IronLionZion]

12. Regional. People are indoors more for air conditioning in hot places

and for warmth in cold places. Then there are people's attitude towards masks/social distance/vaccines. More vaccinated places are faring better now than less vaccinated places. The US South is getting hit hard right now for several reasons.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Philly's actng Health Director just implemended masking recommendations yesterday

for fully vaccinated, and in fact also noted that unvaccinated should double-mask.

I have continued to double-mask as fully vaccinated in supermarkets, the post office, and any other type of retail location.

One of the things to keep in mind too is that just like previous waves (usually coming on the heels of some holiday), the confirmations (not counting asymptomatic infection) can come up to 10 - 14 days after exposure, and then if a hospitalization were needed, it might take some weeks after symptom onset, and finally, if there were severe infections, the deaths would almost always be the greatest lagging indicator, possibly happening a month or more after hospitalization.

So this current spike seems to be coming after July 4th and we are almost at 3 weeks after that, so really just getting started. And with the potential spreading by the vaccinated, anyone infected from the vaccinated might not need hospitalization depending on who gets exposed to them - another vaccinated individual or an unvaccinated one (which keeps those numbers down). But the spreading deed ends up still being done and you can't put that genie back into the bottle.

They need to continue to walk back all that earliest advice about children and what had amounted to them somehow being immune and not at risk. Any variant can upend whatever recommendations have been made previously. I.e., in their excited rush to propel the P.R. idea of a "guaranteed" return to pre-pandemic "normalcy" into the narrative, they ignored the fact that "normal" left the building a long time ago and won't be back any time soon. It WILL happen eventually, but definitely not this year.

A year ago they used the term "new normal" yet they later opted instead to ignore that they said that, and decided to push some utter nonsense that amounted to "go back to what you were doing before - you're home free".

[wnylib]

13. Agree on the masking. I never

go outside my apartment without double masking. I am usually the only one in my apt complex and in public places who is masked up, but I can't know who is vaccinated, who isn't, and who is an asymptomatic carrier.

The incubation period for delta is shorter than previous variants. It is 3 to 5 days. But, yes, there is a lag between getting infected and getting tested or being hospitalized. If someone has mild symptoms, or none, they are not likely to be tested and won't be in a hospital, so there are more infections than the official numbers show. That keeps the virus circulating and mutating.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. And what's worse with Delta

is that it is mimicking its more benign coronavirus "head cold" cousins by presenting with more cold-like types of symptoms vs the "standard" COVID-19 ones. So that means that many who might have it probably think it's just a regular cold or allergies.

[wnylib]

17. I didn't know that. That's scary because

I have a lot of allergies, so how would I know which it was?

[BumRushDaShow]

18. I think that is the problem that might be hiding an undercount of cases

However, from what I have read, many who did get those "cold like" initial symptoms, did eventually develop the more common COVID-19 ones like the loss of taste/smell (which is probably a good red flag one to alert to getting a test just in case).

[IronLionZion]

11. Agreed, I never stopped masking indoors around people

I bought a box of 3M n95 for when it gets really nasty but I've been wearing well fitted comfortable cloth masks with disposable n95 filters and nose flap to create a good seal. I got both shots of Moderna in March/April.

When Dr. Walensky made the decision, lots of people were getting vaccinated and she must have expected that rate to continue. That turned out to be wishful thinking. Some conservatives are willing to own themselves to "own the libs".

[Bayard]

14. New outbreaks are fueled by idiots not getting vaccinated

Plain and simple.

I know it could open a can of new worms, but isn't there some way to make vaccination legally mandatory? Public health issues?

[paleotn]

16. One thing to keep in mind. These are recommendations....

Like Trumpmerica would have even followed CDC if they recommended to keep the mask mandates this summer. CDC acted too fast, granted, but would it have even mattered in places like Florida and Alabama? Probably not.

[NullTuples]

19. I prefer the Alabama Governor's take on it: Blame the unvaccinated

Not the people who can't, the ones who won't.

[Yavin4]

21. How will mandatory masks for the vaccinated increase vaccinations among the unvaccinated?

Doesn't this give the unvaccinated an excuse to not get vaccinated? So, what exactly is the end game here?