OlderCDC Expected to Update Mask Guidelines Amid Pandemic
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reportedly about to change its guidelines.
The CDC is expected to loosen guidelines for mask wearing amid the pandemic with a policy update on Friday (February 25), via the New York Times.
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The policy is expected to loosen its guidelines for when and where Americans should wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus.
The agency currently recommends anyone living in areas with substantial or high transmission of the coronavirus should wear masks in public indoor spaces. The United States is averaging about 76,000 new cases per day, dropping 66% from two weeks ago.
The new recommendations are expected to place less emphasis on case counts, and put more weight on hospitalizations as a key measure of risk.
“The guidelines are likely to factor in the capacity of hospitals in a local area as an important indicator of the level of risk. With hospitalizations declining across the nation, that may allow the great majority of Americans to drop their masks. About 60,000 people are hospitalized with Covid nationwide, but those numbers have dropped by about 44 percent in the past two weeks,” the NYT reports.
Last year, the CDC came under fire for a new policy update regarding isolation.
