How will new CDC mask guidance affect CT?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday new COVID guidelines that will allow most people to go maskless, but its recommendations will not have a significant effect in Connecticut where broad mandates have already been lifted.
The CDC now recommends people living in areas with “high” levels of severe COVID illness and health care system strain, which accounts for only about 37 percent of counties nationwide, to wear masks indoors and in public, including schools.
As of Thursday, most of Connecticut was considered to be in the “low” level except Middlesex County, which was “medium,” according to the CDC. About 23 percent of counties nationwide are considered “low” and about 40 percent are at the “medium” level, CDC officials said Friday.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said the nation is “in a stronger place today ... with more tools to protect ourselves and our communities from COVID-19.” She cited vaccines, broader access to testing and accessibility to treatments as some of those tools.
“With widespread population immunity, the overall risk of severe disease is now generally lower,” Walensky said. “This updated approach focuses on directing our prevention efforts toward protecting people at high risk for severe illness and preventing hospitals and health care systems from being overwhelmed.”
“None of us know what the future may hold for us and for this virus and we need to be prepared and we need to be ready for whatever comes next,” Walensky said. “We want to give people a break from things like mask wearing when our levels are low and then have the ability to reach for them again should things get worse in the future.”
Nothing so far has changed in regards to travel restrictions, but officials will review their transportation recommendations in the next few weeks, Walensky said.
Under federal rules, masks are required onboard airlines, trains, buses, taxis and other public transportation systems. Masks are also required on public and private school buses, and indoor parts of transportation hubs like airports or train stations.
The new guidance is shifting its focus from COVID cases and positivity rates to hospitalizations and local hospital capacities.
A community’s COVID-19 level is determined by the higher metric of either new hospital admissions or percentage of occupied inpatient beds, based on the number of new cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days.
Communities with “low”
levels have fewer than 200 new COVID cases per 100,000 people within seven days, as well as less than 10 new coronavirus hospitalizations per 100,000 people over seven days, according to the CDC guidance. These communities will also have less than 10 percent of their inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients over a seven-day period, the CDC said.
Communities with 200 or more cases per 100,000 people in the past week will be considered “medium” or “high” level, the CDC said.
A community is considered “medium” if it has between 10 and 19.9 new COVID hospital admissions per 100,000 people as well as 10 to 14.9 percent of its inpatient beds occupied by coronavirus patients over a seven-day period, the CDC said.
A community is considered to be in the “high” level if it has 20 or more COVID hospital admissions or 15 percent or more beds
occupied by coronavirus patients, the CDC stated.
The agency’s previous guidance recommended people living in areas with “substantial” or “high” levels of transmission wear masks regardless of whether they are fully vaccinated. The tiers were measured by the level of infection in each county.
In Connecticut, only Fairfield and Windham counties are areas with “substantial” transmission, according to the CDC’s data tracker Friday. The remaining six counties are areas of “high transmission” — which previously meant fully vaccinated people should continue to wear a mask indoors, according to the former CDC guidance.
However, the new guidance doesn’t mean much of a change in Connecticut, where the statewide indoor mask mandate ended in May. Unlike other states in the Northeast, Connecticut never reinstated a statewide universal mask rule despite the surge in cases from omicron, and an earlier wave brought on by the delta variant.
In recent months, local officials enacted their own mask requirements, but many of those have been lifted as the omicron surge has faded.
The omicron surge saw new daily cases of 9,000 or more on average, and hospitalizations rise to their highest level since the start of the pandemic in the spring of 2020. Daily case counts have since fallen below 600 on average, while the number of people hospitalized dropped to 235 on Friday when the daily positivity rate dipped to 2.55 percent.
But that comes as an omicron subvariant may now be spreading in the state, after it initially did not seem to take off. Researchers have raised concern the subvariant, known as BA.2, could prolong the state’s recovery from the virus because it’s believed to be more transmissible than the original omicron strain.
That also comes as many schools will begin allowing students and staff to not wear a mask as soon as Monday.
Earlier this month, Gov. Ned Lamont announced a plan to allow local boards of education to decide whether masks should be required in school starting Monday. Many districts have announced they will stop requiring students and staff to wear masks, while others have said they’ll continue requiring face coverings a little longer.