Schools Can Ease Mask Requirements Depending on Community Spread

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Under new guidelines released Friday, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans who reside in places with low community spread can safely with wearing masks. These new sets of measures are outlined the new measures with more of a focus on the situations happening in hospitals.

The updated system has put more than 60% of the United States in counties where the threat of coronavirus is a low or medium threat to their local hospitals, which means they can stop wearing masks. However, the agency is still advising school children to wear masks where the risk of COVID-19 is high- which is about 37% of the counties- where 28% of where Americans live.

“Anybody is certainly welcome to wear a mask at any time if they feel safer wearing a mask. We want to make sure our hospitals are OK and people are not coming in with severe diseases. Anyone can go to the CDC website, find out the volume of disease in their community and make that decision.”

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky

Americans will still have to wear masks on public transportation which includes airports, train stations, and bus stations, but indoor cities and institutions can set their own guidelines. The agency double-downed that people with COVID-19 symptoms or who test positive shouldn’t stop wearing masks.

The color-coded map offered by the CDC divides counties into three categories (orange, yellow, or green) based on the rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions, the share of staffed hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and rates of new cases in the county. In green counties, local officials can drop any indoor masking rules totally. Yellow means people at high risk for severe disease should be cautious of COVID-19. Orange designates places where the CDC suggests masking should be universal.