Credit: Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman via Imagn Content Services, LLC
Syndication: Austin American-Statesman
New York (AP/77WABC) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reversed course Tuesday on some masking guidelines, recommending that even vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the U.S. where the coronavirus is surging.
Citing new information about the ability of the delta variant to spread among vaccinated people, the CDC also recommended indoor masks for all teachers, staff, students and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status.
The new guidance follows recent decisions in Los Angeles and St. Louis to revert to indoor mask mandates amid a spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations that have been especially bad in the South. The country is averaging more than 57,000 cases a day and 24,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Listen to a portion of CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky during a telebriefing with reporters on Tuesday afternoon below:
Most new infections in the U.S. continue to be among unvaccinated people. But “breakthrough” infections, which generally cause milder illness, can occur in vaccinated people. When earlier strains of the virus predominated, infected vaccinated people were found to have low levels of virus and were deemed unlikely to spread the virus much, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.
But with the delta variant, the level of virus in infected vaccinated people is “indistinguishable” from the level of virus in the noses and throats of unvaccinated people, Walensky said.
In the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut tri-state region — there are a few counties in which the CDC data tracker reveals are in the substantial to moderate level. Those counties in which is considered to be substantial in New York include: Greene, Suffolk, Nassau, Queens, and Bronx County.
In New Jersey, Monmouth County is considered to be in the high level, according to CDC Data. Meanwhile Bergen, Essex, Union, Middlesex, Ocean, Burlington, and Atlantic Counties are in the substantial level.
The data emerged over the last couple of days from 100 samples. It is unpublished, and the CDC has not released it. But “it is concerning enough that we feel like we have to act,” Walensky said.
To view the CDC COVID-19 Data Tracker — to see whether the county you live in is considered to be high, substantial, moderate, low or show no data, you can visit this website: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view
Connecticut is the only state which shows “no data” for increase transmission rates of the Coronavirus delta variant.
