The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to announce new COVID-19 guidelines, including for masking, on Friday, according to multiple reports.
A source told Axios that the new benchmarks will consider a community’s number of cases, hospitalizations, and hospital capacity in its new recommendations, placing less emphasis on case counts alone as the more transmissible, but oftentimes less severe, omicron variant of COVID-19 spreads across the globe and more people get vaccinated.
As it stands now, the CDC recommends masking for everyone in indoor public spaces, regardless of vaccination status, in areas with high transmission. That covers 97% of counties across the country, a percent that is anticipated to drop with the metric changes.
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“It’s time to shift from panic mode to cautiously moving forward,” a CDC scientist told CNN on Thursday. “We still need to be worried about [COVID-19], but maybe not all the time.”
The report said the CDC is expected to hold a news briefing at noon on Friday to discuss the changes.
“We want to give people a break from things like mask-wearing when these metrics are better and then have the ability to reach for them again should things worsen,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said earlier this month, according to CBS News.
More than 128,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the United States on Thursday, according to the World Health Organization. Roughly 534,803,500 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered in the U.S., and 252,276,680 people have received at least one dose, the organization stated.
A Politico-Morning Consult survey released on Feb. 16 found 43% of U.S. citizens said it was too early to end mask mandates. The survey also found 20% of respondents said it was the right time to drop requirements, 15% said mandates should have already ended, and 14% said they should never have been imposed in the first place.
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The CDC has not yet responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
