As the Delta variant surges around the U.S., many of us are anxious about how to combat the new and scary surge. The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) has stuck by their original advisory that vaccinated people should be masking indoors, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C.D.C.) have been telling us since May that it’s okay to unmask if you're vaccinated. As usual, the conflicting advice from health officials has left us confused. To make matters even more complex, some experts are calling for more protective masks now, because they believe they’ll protect us better against the Delta variant.
The new mutations are trying to survive by any means necessary, and so it seems we should as well. That may mean upping our protection game, even if we’re vaccinated. “The weave of cloth masks is not small enough to protect you by blocking the tiny coronavirus molecule from entering your space,” says Sandra de Abreu Guidry-Street, an internal medicine physician in Denver. “Those masks only work if everyone wears one,” she explains. In other words, your mask mostly protects others around you and the mask others wear will protect you — not them, she adds.
