New CDC Covid-19 guidelines suggest 70% of Americans can stop wearing masks

WASHINGTON (NYTIMES) - The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday (Feb 25) offered a new strategy to help communities across the United States live with the coronavirus and get back to some version of normal life.

The new guidelines suggest that 70 per cent of Americans can now stop wearing masks and no longer need to social distance or avoid crowded indoor spaces.

The recommendations no longer rely only on the number of cases in a community to determine the need for restrictions such as mask-wearing. Instead, they direct counties to consider three measures to assess risk of the virus: new Covid-19-related hospital admissions over the previous week and the percentage of hospital beds occupied by Covid-19 patients, as well as new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people over the previous week.

Based on these three factors, counties can calculate whether the risk to their residents is low, medium or high, according to the agency, and only areas of high risk should require everyone to wear a mask. But unvaccinated people should wear masks even in low-risk areas, the agency said.

The agency had endorsed universal masking in schools since July, regardless of virus levels in the community, but the new guidelines recommend masking in schools only in counties at high risk.

The new guidelines are being released as the coronavirus is in retreat across the country. Case numbers have dropped to levels not seen before the surge of the omicron variant, and hospitalisations have been plummeting. About 58,000 people are hospitalised with Covid-19 nationwide, but those numbers have fallen by about 44 per cent in the past two weeks.

Several experts said the new guidelines were appropriate for the country's current situation. Although the number of cases nationwide is still high, "we're well past the surge," said Virginia Tech aerosol scientist Linsey Marr. "We don't need to be operating in emergency mode anymore."

But many places have already shed pandemic restrictions. Most states have eased rules for mask-wearing, and some, like New Jersey, have announced plans to lift mandates even in schools. Others are poised to end indoor mask mandates in the coming weeks. An official recommendation from the CDC may hold some sway in districts that have been more cautious.

Under the CDC's previous criteria, 95 per cent of the counties in the US were considered high-risk. Using the new criteria, fewer than 30 per cent of Americans are living in areas with a high level of risk, the agency said.

The new set of guidelines gives people a framework for adapting precautions as virus levels change, Dr Rochelle Walensky, the CDC's director, told reporters on Friday.

"We want to give people a break from things like masking when our levels are low, and then have the ability to reach for them again should things get worse in the future," she said. "We need to be prepared, and we need to be ready for whatever comes next."

Those who are particularly vulnerable because of their age, health status or occupation may choose to take extra precautions, regardless of the risk level in their community, she added.

The Omicron surge made it clear that because so many Americans have some immunity to the virus through vaccinations or prior infection, counties may see high numbers of cases and yet comparatively few that involve serious illness. The new guidelines nod to that reality and allow for a more sustainable approach to living with the virus, public health experts said.

"It just looked wrong that the whole country was a single shade of red," said Dr Jennifer Nuzzo, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Although a growing number of political leaders, public health experts and ordinary citizens now support the easing of restrictions - at least temporarily - others are still wary. They note that millions of people in the United States - including children younger than five - and billions around the world remain unvaccinated, making the emergence of a dangerous new variant not just possible but likely.

The CDC and the Biden administration have declared victory prematurely before, including last spring, when they told vaccinated Americans they could go mask-free and celebrate a "summer of freedom", only to see the Delta variant send hospitalisations and deaths soaring again.

The White House has been working on a pandemic exit strategy that would help Americans live with the virus. But Dr Walensky said just two weeks ago that it was not yet time to lift mask mandates. And some officials in the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services are nervous about the changing guidance, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some public health experts also balked at the easing of restrictions, noting that the country is recording roughly 1,900 Covid-19-related deaths every day, children younger than five still do not have vaccines available to them, and significant numbers of Americans remain at high risk because of their age, health status or occupation.

The agency's new guidelines do not address whether and for how long people who test positive for the virus should isolate themselves, noted Dr Robby Sikka, who chairs the Covid-19 Sports and Society Working Group, an organisation that oversees safety for professional sports teams.