CDC urges vaccinated Americans to wear masks indoors again
Revising a decision made just two months ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that people vaccinated against the coronavirus should resume wearing masks in public indoor spaces in parts of the country where the virus is surging.
CDC officials also recommended universal masking for teachers, staff, students and visitors in schools, regardless of vaccination status and community transmission of the virus. With additional precautions, schools nonetheless should return to in-person learning in the fall, according to agency officials.
Clark County School District officials immediately accepted the new recommendation and said it would require masks for all teachers and students when indoors in the coming school year.
The CDC’S recommendations are another baleful twist in the course of America’s pandemic, a war-weary concession that the virus is outstripping vaccination efforts. The agency’s move follows rising case counts in states like Florida and Missouri, as well as growing reports of breakthrough infections of the more contagious delta variant among people who are fully immunized.
“The delta variant is showing every day its willingness to outsmart us,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said at a news briefing Tuesday.
Data from several states and other countries show that the variant behaves differently from previous versions of the coronavirus, she added: “This new science is worrisome and unfortunately warrants an update to our recommendation.”
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said at a news conference Tuesday that changing the guidance was crucial to “battling an ever-evolving virus” and that the Biden administration supported the effort.
“Their job is to look at evolving information, evolving data, an evolving historic pandem
ic, and provide guidance to the American public,” Psaki said.
“The virus is changing; we are dealing with a dynamic situation,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration’s top pandemic adviser. The CDC is correct to revisit its recommendations as the virus evolves, he said.
“I don’t think you can say that this is just flip-flopping back and forth,” he added. “They’re dealing with new information that the science is providing.”
The vaccines remain remarkably effective against the worst outcomes of infection with any form of the coronavirus, including hospitalization and death. But the new guidelines explicitly apply to both the unvaccinated and vaccinated, a sharp departure from the agency’s position since May that vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most indoor spaces.
Those recommendations, which seemed to signal a winding down of the pandemic, were based on earlier data suggesting that vaccinated people rarely become infected and almost never transmit the virus, making masking unnecessary.
But that was before the arrival of the delta variant, which now accounts for the bulk of infections in the United States. CDC officials were persuaded by new scientific evidence showing that even vaccinated people may become infected and may carry the virus in great amounts, Walensky acknowledged at the news briefing.
Some public health experts welcomed the agency’s decision to revise its guidelines. Based on what scientists are learning about the delta variant’s ability to cause breakthrough infections, “this is a move in the right direction,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York.
The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the two leading teachers’ unions, strongly endorsed the CDC’S move to universal masking in schools.
“Masking inside schools, regardless of vaccine status, is required as an important way to deal with the changing realities of virus transmission,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT. “It is a necessary precaution until children under 12 can receive a COVID vaccine and more Americans over 12 get vaccinated.”
Whether state and local health officials are willing to follow the agency’s guidance is far from certain. And there is sure to be resistance from pandemic-fatigued Americans, particularly in regions of the country where vaccination rates are low and concerns about the virus are muted.
Some jurisdictions, like Los Angeles County and St. Louis County, Mo., have already reinstated mask mandates in response to rising cases.
In robocalls and emails to parents of students Tuesday, CCSD said all students and staff would be required to wear masks indoors and on buses “unless medical or developmental conditions prohibit use.” Classes for the 2021-’22 school year begin Aug. 9 in the district.
“We will continue to monitor the health data in our community to make informed decisions regarding the implementation of mitigation strategies,” the district said in a statement.
Arkansas, one of the states with the highest numbers, has retained a ban on mask mandates even as vaccination rates lag.
As recently as last week, a CDC spokesman said that the agency had no plans to change its guidance, unless there were a significant change in the science. Researchers have begun to turn up disturbing new data.
The delta variant is thought to be about twice as contagious as the original version of the virus. Some research now suggests that people infected with the variant carry about a thousandfold more virus than those infected with other variants and may stay infected for longer.
CDC officials were swayed by new research showing that even vaccinated people may carry great amounts of the variant virus in the nose and throat, hinting that they also may spread it to others, according to three federal officials familiar with the matter.
Large so-called viral loads, particularly in the nose and throat, may help explain reports of breakthrough infections in groups of vaccinated people.
Some of the infected had symptoms, but the vast majority were not seriously ill, suggesting that immunity produced by the vaccines quickly curbs the virus.
Vaccines “are not a force field,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. Instead, vaccination trains the immune system to recognize cells that become infected with the virus.