The CDC Says Most Americans Can Take Their Masks Off

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are letting most Americans take their masks off for a little bit, as a treat.

On Friday, the public health agency released a new COVID Community Levels tool that measures the severity of the pandemic by COVID’s burden on the hospital system, rather than the number of cases. That change in measurement means the CDC is now classifying about 70 percent of counties in the country at low or medium threat of COVID. In those areas, the agency is no longer recommending people wear a mask indoors.

These new guidelines don’t change the requirements that people wear masks on well-ventilated airplanes or near-empty buses and subways. The agency is still also recommending that people, including school children in K-12 schools, wear masks indoors in the 30 percent of counties where the risk of COVID-19 is ranked as high.

The in-school masking recommendation is being lifted for school children in low- and medium-risk counties, however. That’s a change from CDC Director Rochelle Walensky’s comments from just last week. The director had s