CDC eases mask recommendations for most of the United States.

 

Children forced to wear masks at an elementary school. ABC News/Getty.

The CDC has revised recommendations for most of the United States for wearing facemasks. ABC News. The new mandate says that in counties under low or medium "threat", based on transmission and available hospital beds, masks are no longer needed. Counties with high levels of transmission will still be recommended to force mask wearing. The CDC also dropped the controversial school mask mandate, citing the lower risk to kids from the disease. They also recommend that people with active coronavirus infections to continue to wear masks and for people at high risk to continue wearing masks. 

My Comment:

This is fairly important news that is getting buried by the Russia/Ukraine conflict. Indeed, I think it was probably released during the war as to lesson the impact here as it pretty clearly indicates that the CDC is admitting they got masking wrong. Especially when it comes to masking children in schools. 

How much of an impact this will have is unclear. I know for many people the issue is moot because their states or counties lifted their mask mandates either recently or awhile ago. In my case outside of work I haven't had to wear a mask outside of a doctors office since last spring. For many people this ruling is irrelevant. 

But it may affect many people. I know my company has stuck with masks for reasons that I don't want to get into here, but they cited government regulations as one of those reasons. With the mandate being lifted for areas at lower risk (which I checked and confirmed we are at low risk) will the masks be going away? It's a question I look forward to being answered when I return to work on Monday. 

The bigger news here is that the CDC no longer recommends masking for children in schools. This was long overdue as children were never at great risk from any of the strains of the Coronavirus. Even the base Wuhan version never really attacked children the way it did older people, unlike Influenza that targets both.

And let's not understate the damage masking did to children. Not only did kids hate masks it probably damaged the development and language skills of younger children who had to mask up for two years now. Children learn from watching and they were prevented from doing that by these masks. Many of these children will not be able to catch up. The time to drop these mandates has long passed but I am glad that they are finally gone. 

I know that the CDC has said that if transmission picks up again, they will recommend masks but at this point I doubt it will matter. People are sick of these restrictions and I doubt compliance will continue. I know at work the only time anyone actually wears masks is when management is around. People don't see a reason to wear them. 

Finally, I never thought masks were all that effective in the first place. They were never designed to protect people from infection, they were supposed to prevent sick people from spreading the virus if they coughed or sneezed. And people never wore them correctly in the first place. They might have had some small effect but in most cases it was simply medical theater.