UNDATED – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to recommend everyone in K-12 schools wear a mask, regardless of their vaccination status, as it updates its masking guidelines on Tuesday, according to an administration health official.
The CDC is also urging vaccinated people in certain areas of the country to resume wearing masks because of Covid-19.
The CDC is slated to hold a briefing at 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
The CDC’s guidance is only a recommendation, leaving it up to states and local officials on whether to reintroduce their mask rules for certain people. But even before the CDC’s anticipated guidance Tuesday, some regions were reintroducing mask mandates and advisories as Covid cases began to spike again.
The new guidance follows recent decisions in Los Angeles and St. Louis to revert to indoor mask mandates amid a spike in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations that have been especially bad in the South.
Experts say Covid-19 prevention strategies remain critical to protecting people from the virus, especially in areas of moderate-to-high community transmission levels.
For months COVID cases, deaths and hospitalizations were falling steadily, but those trends began to change at the beginning of the summer as a mutated and more transmissible version of the coronavirus, the delta variant, began to spread widely, especially in areas with lower vaccination rates.
The country is averaging more than 57,000 cases a day and 24,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations.
Senator Mike Braun released the following video responding to reports that the CDC would go back on their previous guidance and again recommend masks for vaccinated Americans.
