The CDC’s new mask guidance guarantees we’ll be too slow for the next surge

 

The shift in focus away from case counts could lead to a delay in much-needed public health interventions

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently revealed new guidelines for coronavirus control in the United States, increasing the thresholds of disease that trigger recommendations for mask-wearing. In the blink of an eye, the CDC pivoted from recommending that nearly everyone wear a mask to saying it was necessary for only about 30 percent of Americans.

The guidelines’ chief innovation is to combine case levels with hospitalization figures — those related to hospital admissions as well as occupancy levels of staffed beds — rather than using case numbers alone. Under the old guidelines, a case rate of 50 per 100,000 in a county was enough to trigger a recommendation that individuals mask indoors; now the case rate must be four times that for the recommendation to kick in. (At lowercase rates, high hospitalization numbers can also trigger masking recommendations.)..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/03/08/cdc-mask-guidance-mistake/