If your area is having a high level of community spread, you should be masking up indoors, Dr. “It should have been one way or the other.” So, when should you still mask up? “They violated the KISS rule-Keep It Simple, Stupid,” he says. Schaffner says that the CDC has also “made things a little more complicated” with the latest guidance. “If almost the entire country has significant and high levels of spread, but very different conditions inside hospitals, then the metric of exclusively using cases is not warranted when it comes to guidance.”īut Dr. Adalja, M.D., a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
“When it comes to public health guidance from the CDC, it is really important for it to be tied to metrics that are meaningful,” says infectious disease expert Amesh A. “Cases are going down, hospitalizations are dropping around the country and the CDC is responding to that,” he adds. William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, says that the updated guidance shows that “we are continuing on this transition from pandemic to endemic.” You can also search there for your COVID-19 community level based on your state and country. You can look at a map of the entire country and its risk on the CDC’s website. Story continues Where’s the new CDC mask guidance map? The CDC advises wearing a well-fitting mask indoors in public, regardless of your vaccination status or individual risk. And, if you live with or have social contact with someone who is considered high risk for severe illness from COVID-19, the CDC recommends considering testing yourself for infection before you see that person and wearing a mask when you’re indoors with them.
If you’re immunocompromised or at a high risk for severe illness from COVID-19, the CDC recommends talking to your healthcare provider about wearing a mask indoors in public settings. You should wear a mask “based on your personal preference, informed by your personal level of risk,” the CDC says. Here’s a breakdown of what each means, per the CDC: From there, you’ll be informed whether the COVID-19 transmission in your community is low, medium, or high. To use it, you’ll visit the CDC’s website and enter in your state and county. Instead, it offers up a more tailored approach based on where you live and what’s currently happening in your area. The guidance stops short of saying everyone can ditch their masks. What does the new CDC masking guidance say, exactly? The new guidance does involve a little legwork on your end to see what’s happening in your community before making the decision to mask up or not. We all have a responsibility to protect those among us most at risk from #COVID19 & keep them safe.”
We should all support and encourage efforts that protect those at high risk. “This framework moves beyond looking just at cases and test positivity to evaluate factors that reflect severity of disease, including hospitalizations and hospital capacity,” CDC director Rochelle Walensky, M.D., wrote on Twitter.“It is important to remember that people may choose to mask at any time. The guidance also shows that the majority of Americans live in areas where people who are healthy don’t need to wear masks indoors. Under the new guidance, the CDC uses “community level” metrics to help people see what the level of COVID-19 is in their area and how it should influence their decision to mask up or not when they go out in public. Masking has become a semi-normal part of life over the past two-plus years, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just revealed new guidance that suggests many people don't need to mask up much anymore for COVID-19 and the Omicron variant. Photo credit: Calvin Chan Wai Meng - Getty Images
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