The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will recommend on Tuesday that vaccinated Americans should wear masks indoors in some situations, The New York Times has reported.
It is a reversal on the decision to the CDC made on May 13, saying fully vaccinated Americans were safe to unmask indoors in a majority of situations.
Americans who live in COVID-19 hotspots will be expected to mask up indoors, according to the new guidance.
While the CDC’s recommendations are not binding – and no states are required to listen to the agency – guidance often informs policy decision made across the country at the state and local level.
The decision comes as cases across the United States are growing once again due to the highly contagious Indian Delta variant.
Over the past month, the average new daily cases across the country have increased by 376 percent, from 11,887 on June 26 to 56,635 on July 26.
CDC will recommend on Tuesday that fully vaccinated Americans to put masks back on indoors in some situations. Pictured: People wear face coverings as they pass through Union Station in Los Angeles, California, July 2021
The CDC’s reversal comes as case counts across the country begin to grow once again
The CDC’s initial decision to lift the mask mandate in May was met with some push back from health experts.
Some, like Dr Anthony Fauci, said that it was confusing guidance that may make some believe the pandemic is over.
Others feared that unvaccinated Americans would unmask despite not being protected from the virus.
Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, defended the decision, though, pointing to data that serious cases among fully vaccinated people were rare at the time.
Currently, around 56 percent of Americans have received at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, and half of the country is fully vaccinated.
That means that more than 40 percent of Americans, and 30 percent of adults, are not vaccinated at all.
America’s vaccine rollout has slowed as well in recent months.
In early April, almost 3.5 millions shots were being distributed every day.
In the time since, vaccine distribution has slowly declined, grinding to a near halt at this point.
Under a half-million shots are being distributed every day at this point, with the country still far away from herd immunity.
President Joe Biden set a target of getting at least 70 percent of Americans vaccinated by July 4, which the country failed to hit.
Since, the federal government has launched a wider effort to get people vaccinated, eve supporting door-to-door vaccination outreach in some states.
A large portion of unvaccinated people are congregated in a few areas in the U.S. south and the northwestern plains.
States with low vaccination rates, like Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas are getting hammered by the variant.
Some pockets of Florida, a state with a comparatively higher vaccination rate of over 50 percent, is getting slammed as well.
An analysis from last week found that just Missouri, Florida and Texas alone account for 40 percent of active cases.
Those who live in those pockets will be expected to wear masks indoors again, per the CDC guidance.
There have also been some doubts over how protected some people who are vaccinated are from the Delta variant.
Data from Israel, where a majority of people have received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, shows the variant could regularly cause ‘breakthrough’ cases among the fully vaccinated.
There has also been a rise in Delta breakthrough cases in the United States.
The variant accounts for around 70 percent of active cases in the country.
Despite the increase in breakthrough cases, though, the amount of fully vaccinated people suffering from serious cases of the virus is still low.
In Los Angeles, where the county actually brought back a mask mandate after rolling it back over the summer, officials said last week that all hospitalizations were among unvaccinated people.
In Maryland, every single one of the 92 COVID deaths recorded in the state in June were among unvaccinated people.
Also, 93 percent of hospitalizations were among the unvaccinated.
Nationwide, 99 percent of COVID-19 deaths from the month of May were among unvaccinated people.