At a time that most states, counties, and cities are getting rid of their mask mandates, even for schools, the CDC thinks they’re still relevant
CDC to release guidance Friday that would ease mask restrictions for many Americans
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will release new and highly anticipated guidance on Friday that eases indoor masking recommendations in many parts of the U.S., officials told ABC News.
The new guidance is expected to outline how the country should move into the next phase of the pandemic, with a shifted focus from daily spread in a community to the more severe impacts of the virus, like hospitalizations and health care strain.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has said publicly the agency was updating the guidance.
“Moving forward, our approach will advise enhanced prevention efforts in communities with a high volume of severe illness and will also focus on protecting our healthcare systems from being overwhelmed,” she tweeted late Thursday.
The new guidance will be intended to help states and counties decide what metrics should guide that decision at a local level. Omicron, which has substantially subsided across the country, left many Americans feeling eager to retain some normalcy during a potential lull in the pandemic.
Most states have been ignoring the CDC’s masking guidance for well over a year, because it has made little difference. You have lots of mask cultists stating that wearing masks brought down Delta and Omicron, yet, both variants rose while people were wearing masks. If masks work so well, why change the guidance? They didn’t after Delta cases crashed. And the infection rate right now is still higher nationally than it was before Omicron hit.
Though a majority of states went ahead and announced that they will drop mask mandates before the CDC’s guidance was ready, the new information could still aid local leaders and public health officials who are facing vastly different versions of the pandemic even within the same state.
Looks like the CDC is giving up on trying to influence states and, instead, target cities, getting them to listen to the CDC.
Walensky has cautioned, though, that there won’t be a “date certain” that ends the pandemic.
“I think we’re gonna tiptoe out of this and that we will very gradually, one day, realize in retrospect, we’re no longer in this anymore, or at least in it the way we have been for the last two years,” she said in a podcast interview on Tuesday.
In other words, they want to keep this going as long as possible, while most nations seem to be moving away from keeping this going. You know, this might have all turned out a lot better if it wasn’t so darned apparent that groups like the CDC weren’t using a pandemic for authoritarian power.
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