CDC doubles down on mask guidance as Covid cases and deaths surge across the nation

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today recommended universal mask use in all indoor settings, except when people are in their own homes, as part of a multipronged strategy to slow the nation’s surge and speed economic recovery.

The advice comes a day after the nation recorded new single-day highs for cases and deaths, as well as a record number of Americans hospitalized, and marks the first time the CDC has recommended universal mask use indoors. The CDC published its advice, which laid out evidence-based strategies that also included physical distancing and stepping up testing, diagnosis, and isolation, in an early online report in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

It said with the onset of colder weather, more time spent indoors, and the ongoing holiday season, the United States has entered a high-level transmission phase that requires individuals and communities to take all steps, especially given that the virus can spread silently, with 50% of transmission from asymptomatic people.

The CDC said the nation’s rapidly expanding activity is stressing health capacity and that full implementation of all the measures would help save lives, keep kids in school, and help keep essential businesses functioning. “These actions will provide a bridge to a future with wide availability and high community coverage of effective vaccines, when safe return to more everyday activities in a range of settings will be possible,” it added.

Yesterday, the US reported 217,644 cases and 2,879 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard. And the COVID Tracking Project reported that 100,755 Americans are currently hospitalized for their infections.

In other surge-related developments, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, said during a Zoom call with the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention that most churches should transition to remote services if they haven’t already done so, NPR reported. The comments came the same day the US Supreme Court ordered a federal court to reexamine its earlier support for restrictions on indoor religious services in California.

Also, in multiple states, overwhelmed health workers are appealing directly to governors for stronger responses to the pandemic, the Washington Post reported. The biggest effort came from Connecticut, but doctors in Tennessee, Missouri, and Mississippi have made public their pleas to governors.

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