WASHINGTON — U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experts are developing guidance to help states ease COVID-19 rules for mask-wearing, even as U.S. health officials said it’s still premature to dispense of the measures, as some governors are doing.
“We are working on that guidance,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday in a White House press call, cautioning that “our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high. So as we work towards that, and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.”
Numerous Democratic-leaning states are already dropping or scaling back such restrictions. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state will end its indoor mask mandate, and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said a school masking requirement will be allowed to expire. New Jersey, Delaware and Connecticut have all announced moves this week to ease or end mandates amid rising public discontent with pandemic rules.
