People vaccinated against covid-19 in high-risk areas in the United States must return to wearing face coverings, the top health official said Tuesday, a major change that underscores the country’s fight to abolish the Delta variant.
US President Joe Biden said this announcement shows that the country must “improve” its vaccination rates and added that he has “considered” ordering mandatory immunization for the country’s two million federal employees.
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Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said in a telephone news conference that the new data show that while vaccines are effective against the Delta variant, unusual cases of infection among immunized people have an increased risk of transmission.
Because of this, “in areas where there is substantial and high transmission, the CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people wear masks in enclosed public places,” he said.
According to the most recent CDC data, much of the southern United States experiences high transmission, while areas with high vaccination rates in the Northeast exhibit moderate community transmission.
Substantial transmission is considered to be between 50 and 100 cases per day per 100,000 population over an average of seven days, while high transmission involves more than 100 cases per 100,000 people over the same average.
In a statement released shortly after the CDC’s announcement, Biden said he will announce thursday the new steps his administration will take to overcome the stalemate in the U.S. vaccination process, even though it is the country with the world’s largest supply.
In a separate speech to the U.S. Intelligence community, when asked if he would order mandatory vaccination of federal employees, Biden responded, “that’s under consideration right now.”
On Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that its more than 115,000 health care workers will have to be vaccinated against covid-19, becoming the first federal agency to issue such an order.
Getting vaccinated is the solution
Walensky explained that the measure is necessary because of the increase in infections caused by the Delta variant across the country, especially in states where the vaccination rate remains low.
Although vaccines are effective against the Delta variant, the new data “indicate that, on rare occasions, some people are vaccinated … they can be contagious,” he added.
“These new scientific data are troubling and, unfortunately, warrant an update of our recommendation,” he said.
To stop the spread of the Delta variant, the CDC will recommend that schools adopt the universal mask, including teachers, staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status, Walensky added.
Infections are on the rise in the United States thanks to the Delta variant, which now accounts for 90% of cases.
The latest seven-day average of daily cases is more than 56,000, similar to the levels last seen in April.
In addition, only 49% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, although the rate is heavily skewed among the country’s liberal and conservative regions.
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Eric Cioe-Pena, director of Global Health at Northwell Health in New York, told AFP that the CDC’s move “is a solution to a problem that exists because we have high levels of people who are not vaccinated.”
“The main predictor of how much covid will increase in an area is its vaccination rate,” he added, so areas with the largest immunized population will be exempt from the new recommendation to wear caps.
According to an article recently published in the journal Virological, the viral load of patients with Delta was 1,000 times higher than that of those infected during the first wave of the virus in 2020.
Last month, Israel reimposed the obligation to wear a mask just 10 days after it was removed. Some U.S. local authorities, such as Los Angeles County, have already taken similar steps.
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