The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday said some 93% of the U.S. population live in locations where COVID-19 levels are low enough that people do not need to wear masks indoors.
On Friday, the CDC dramatically eased its COVID-19 guidelines for when Americans should wear masks indoors, saying they could drop them in counties experiencing what it described as low or medium COVID-19 levels.
The agency said on Thursday that 85.4% of counties now rank as low or medium risk and 92.9% of the population lives in those counties. The masking guidelines announced last week shifted from a focus on the rate of COVID-19 transmission to local hospitalizations, hospital capacity and infection rates. A growing number of federal agencies have told government employees this week they can stop wearing masks indoors in federal buildings in the Washington, D.C. area and other low or medium COVID areas, including the State Department, Pentagon, Transportation Department, Federal Aviation Administration and Justice Department.
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