Here's why the CDC reversed course on masks indoors--and how it might affect you
U.S. public health officials guidance on mask-wearing is evolving because the virus behind COVID-19 is evolvingand flexible tactics are needed to fight a pandemic that is clearly far from over.
Less than three months after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had said that vaccinated people need not mask indoors or outdoors, based on the high protection conferred by the three COVID-19 vaccines authorized in this country, the CDC reversed course, urging people to wear masks in schools and in public indoor spaces in parts of the country with high or substantial coronavirus transmission.
Behind the stark warning were even starker facts: As SARS-CoV-2 has spread around the world and replicated in hundreds of millions of people, the virus has had more than a year to stumble upon mutations that let it more effectively enter human cells and evade our immune systems. Now, the world is facing the Delta variant first identified in India, which is estimated to be roughly twice as transmissible as earlier strains of the virus. The variant is spreading quickly through undervaccinated regions in the U.S. and around the world, presenting even more opportunities for the virus to replicate and mutate.
The global rise of Delta was probably avoidable, but that [would have taken] a more unified and coordinated responsenot just here in the United States, but elsewhere, says University of Pittsburgh microbiologist Vaughn Cooper. We are connected, and this variant is remarkably contagious, and our vaccination levels are just not uniformly high.
Just 49 percent of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, and vaccination rates today are just a sixth of what they were in Aprila lag that has fueled new outbreaks in undervaccinated pockets of the country. In addition to the CDC's new guidance, President Biden said on Tuesday that his administration is considering requiring all federal workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Bidens remarks come the day after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs mandated vaccines for its 115,000 healthcare workers.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/why-the-cdc-reversed-course-on-masks-indoors-and-how-it-might-affect-you
PoindexterOglethorpe
(25,750 posts)with any covid risk. I had major dental surgery in June, with the extraction of all my teeth. I now have dentures. I'm still dealing with getting them to fit properly. So I'm not willing to appear in public without a mask. Thank you, pandemic. Of course, continuing to wear a mask has other benefits, which I appreciate.
Honestly, I'm grateful for the pandemic, because I can't really imagine how I'd have handled this two or three years ago.
This is just one more very small example of how the pandemic is changing a lot of things profoundly.