What You Need to Know About the Newly Updated CDC’s Mask Guidance
As of Tuesday, June 27th 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its mask guidance to recommend fully vaccinated people wear mask indoors, specially in “substantial” and “high” transmission areas, to prevent the spread of the Delta variant.
Two factors have led to the CDC’s new guideline: the predominance of the Delta variant and low vaccine uptake in most US counties.
According to a recent article by CNN and data from the CDC, nearly half of US counties - 46% - currently have high transmission and 17% have “substantial” transmission.
This comes as no surprise since, according to data published in the CDC official site, the number of daily doses administrated in the United States has significantly decrease from over 4 million in April of this year to a little over 400 thousand in the month of July.
Daily Count of Total Doses Administrated and Reported to the CDC
Cc: CDC
To bring awareness to low vaccine administration rate, the CDC recommends community leaders and health organizations to encourage and educate residents about the importance and benefits of getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective at preventing COVID-19, including severe illness and death. In addition, the COVID-19 vaccine also protects against COVID-19 variants currently circulating in the United States such as Delta. When infections do occur among vaccinated people, they tend to be mild, but overall, research has shown that breakthrough infections among vaccinated people remains low.
Still, CDC wants you to be aware of the following:
If you are fully vaccinated, you can participate in many of the activities that you did before the pandemic.
Wearing a mask is most important if you have a weakened immune system or if, because of your age or an underlying medical condition, you are at increased risk for severe disease, or if someone in your household has a weakened immune system, is at increased risk for severe disease, or is unvaccinated. If this applies to you or your household, you might choose to wear a mask regardless of the level of transmission in your area.
You should continue to wear a mask where required by laws, rules, regulations, or local guidance.
If you’ve been around someone who has COVID-19, you should get tested 3-5 days after your exposure, even if you don’t have symptoms. You should also wear a mask indoors in public for 14 days following exposure or until your test result is negative. You should isolate for 10 days if your test result is positive.
If you are fully vaccinated and become infected with the Delta variant; you can spread the virus to others.
For more COVID-19 updates and CDC guidelines, please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
Sources: CDC, CNN