Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
CDC Loosens Mask Guidance For Most People In Dramatic Shift
AP: CDC: Many Healthy Americans Can Take A Break From Masks
Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks under new U.S. guidelines released Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals. The new system greatly changes the look of the CDC’s risk map and puts more than 70% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are the people who can stop wearing masks, the agency said. (Johnson and Stobbe, 2/25)
Stat: CDC Issues Long-Awaited New Guidance On When To Wear Masks
The new system moves beyond sheer numbers of new cases to look at how well the health care system in each county is holding up. The idea, the CDC said, is to focus on minimizing severe disease and ensuring that hospitals are able to cope with Covid cases while still delivering standard care. The designations will be based on key metrics at a county level, using data counties provide to the CDC on an ongoing basis. Those include the rate of Covid cases that require hospitalization and the percentage of beds in hospitals that are occupied by people who have Covid. If immunity from vaccination or prior infection holds and fewer people who contract Covid develop severe disease, more counties would move into the low-risk designation. But if a new variant emerges that causes more severe illness, rising hospitalizations would trigger a return to a recommendation to wear masks. (Branswell, 2/25)
NBC News: CDC: Indoor Masking No Longer Necessary Across Most Of The U.S
It's a dramatic shift from the previous guidance, which recommended masks in counties with substantial or high transmission, a category that covered the vast majority of the country. The recommendations apply to everyone, not just those who are vaccinated or have received a booster shot. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a briefing Friday that the change reflects that the overall risk of severe disease from Covid is lower because of widespread immunity provided by vaccines or prior infection, improvements in testing, and accessibility to new treatments. "We're in a stronger place today as a nation with more tools to protect ourselves," she said. (Lovelace Jr. and Edwards, 2/25)
Politico: CDC Relaunching Covid Tracker With An Eye On Eased Mandates
Under the agency’s current case-centric formula, just 3 percent of the country is not experiencing the “moderate,” “substantial,” or “high” Covid-19 transmission that requires strict health measures. But that approach was developed before vaccines and treatments were widely available that have sharply diminished the risk of severe disease for most Americans. The new metrics, by contrast, will place more weight on whether a Covid-19 outbreak risks overwhelming local hospitals — and less on the number of individual infections. That shift will mean roughly 20 percent of the country can now pull back on mask mandates and social-distancing limits, one senior administration official said. (Cancryn and Owermohle, 2/24)
