Most Americans no longer need to wear masks indoors because of COVID-19, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations announced Friday, signaling a shift into the next phase of the pandemic.
The CDC is also recommending that masks be worn in schools only in parts of the country with high transmission. The agency’s new guidelines rely on how much of an impact the pandemic has on the health care system and severity of disease, rather than just the number of COVID-19 cases and amount of virus transmission in a community.
Under previous guidelines, the CDC recommended people in roughly 97 percent of the nation’s counties wear a mask indoors, but it now says Americans in just 37.3 percent of counties should wear a face mask in public indoor settings.
