The CDC's new guidance for masks concedes that one size does not fit all

Last update: Tuesday 3/1/22 

This first part of a two-part blog note celebrates the CDC's long overdue recognition that its guidance should vary from one community to another and from one individual in a community to another individual. To be specific, this note provides a brief overview of the mitigation guidance that the CDC issued on 2/25/22. The second part (coming soon) will discuss the rationale for the new guidance and will present a few critical assessments.

Brief Overview

Masks

Most prior CDC guidance seemed to be guided by a notion that one size fits all, i.e., one guidance was appropriate for the entire nation. On 2/25/22, the CDC updated its guidance for wearing masks to one that was tailored to the level of COVID in each county -- low, medium, or high.  The rationale for the metrics the CDC uses to determine these levels is described in a PDF that can be viewed or downloaded from this link which can be found at the end of the "Overview" section of the CDC's "COVID-19 Community Levels" page. This page also specifies sets of "Community-level prevention strategies (as recommended by state or local authorities)" for low, middle, and high level communities.

Readers can obtain these levels by using a widget on the CDC's webpage. A copy of this widget appears below. When a user selects a state and a county from the drop-down lists in the input box, the widget returns the COVID level of the county together with the CDC's mask guidance for that level. The CDC suggests that schools encourage their students, teachers, administrators, and staff to follow the same mask guidelines as for persons in their surrounding communities.

• "New C.D.C. Guidelines Suggest 70 Percent of Americans Can Stop Wearing Masks", Apoorva Mandavilli, NY Times, 2/26/22 
  
  
• "CDC Eases Mask Guidelines, Reflecting Covid-19’s Retreat", Sarah Toy and Jon Kamp, Wall Street Journal, 2/25/22  
  
  
• "CDC issues long-awaited new guidance on when to wear masks", Helen Branswell, STAT, 3/25/22

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Other mitigations

On 2/25/22 the CDC also updated its guidance for other mitigations, including vaccinations, social distancing, testing, hand washing, etc. 

• "How to Protect Yourself & Others", CDC, 2/25/22

Part 2 ==> Rationale for the CDC's new guidance for masks <==

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Related links on this blog:

• "Background immunity" -- A new pandemic management goal suggested by Dr. Fauci", Last update: 2/1/22
  
  
• "Returning to more normal living, regardless of mandates", Last update: 2/17/22
  
  
• "Acceptable costs of living with the virus", Last update: 10/24/21