Now it’s up to us, not health officials, to decide when masks are needed. Here’s what you need to know.
Mask rules are about to change, signaling the end of official oversight of our pandemic behavior.
“That’s tricky to navigate,” said UC San Francisco infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong. “The approach is less of a sledgehammer – ‘everybody has to do the same thing’ – to one that’s more individual.” Only Santa Clara County is continuing with its rule that residents wear masks in indoor public spaces, regardless of whether they’ve been vaccinated. That’s consistent with the guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which suggests masking in places with substantial COVID-19 transmission rates.
While COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are falling, the pandemic is far from over. A study published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines lose substantial effectiveness at preventing outpatient visits after about four months — falling from 87% to 66%. But they still provided significant protection in keeping people out of the hospital.
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