CNN –
Months after most mask requirements ended and many people stopped wearing them, some of the nation’s top health experts are encouraging people to wear masks again, but this time it’s not just because of the Covid-19.
As a triple threat of respiratory illnesses (flu, RSV and Covid-19) sweeps the nation this holiday season, health officials are urging people to take precautions to protect themselves: Get vaccinated, wash your hands with frequency and even masking in certain circumstances.
“There’s been a lot of attention paid to patients who are at higher risk of complications from all of these diseases: older people, people who have an underlying disease, anyone who’s immunocompromised, I think, during this increase in this tridemia, yes Will, there’s been a lot of dust on your mask. Put your mask back on,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
At this stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, even with other types of respiratory viruses circulating, masking recommendations based on an individual’s risk have been at the center of public health discussions,” in instead of saying everyone in a community has to wear masks. come back,” Schaffner said.
“I don’t want to go to the mandates because I think in much of the United States, you’re going to have a lot of pushback and people are going to ignore it. The public health recommendations have to be acceptable,” he added.
“The idea that during these kinds of viral surges, that people at risk should wear masks and be more cautious seems entirely reasonable, and I add to that, especially in this part of the country, that we should be accepting, tolerant and actually. supporting the people who do this, because they have a reason,” said Schaffner, who lives in Nashville.
“Don’t look at this as a political statement or a social statement. This is a purely health-related statement.”
Some communities across the country are considering bringing back certain masking recommendations as the wave of respiratory illnesses worsens.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers specific guidance on when to recommend wearing a mask based on community levels of Covid-19.
The agency says people can choose to wear masks at any time, but a “high-quality mask or respirator” is recommended for everyone when a county has a “high” community level of Covid-19.
As of Thursday, about 5.66 percent of U.S. counties have high community levels, including some places in Arizona, Wyoming, Oregon and the Dakotas.
Los Angeles County is at a community-elevated level of Covid-19 but has not reached the three indicators that would trigger a mask mandate, Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.
The county has 258 new Covid-19 cases per 100,000 people and 14.8 hospitalizations per 100,000 people, but remains below the “high” level of staffed Covid patient beds at 6.9% , he said.
Officials will reconsider masks if that level exceeds 10 percent, Ferrer said, but he’s hopeful the metrics will improve sooner.
Even without a mandate, he emphasized community efforts like wearing masks indoors when possible and getting Covid-19 vaccines or boosters.
“We haven’t reached that super-dangerous threshold where the CDC has said, ‘You really have to start worrying about your hospital system,’ but we have reached a threshold, and all the data shows it, where there’s too much transmission, and it’s creating a lot of risk. And the time to mitigate risk is now,” Ferrer said.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Los Angeles County has been at the forefront of implementing mitigation measures. In that case, officials would follow CDC guidance on masking and community levels.
“What L.A. County is doing is they’re looking at their increase in cases and hospitalizations and deaths, and they’re seeing an upward trend toward this high level of transmission in the community, and they’re getting ready to go back to implement the guidance that goes along with high community transmission, and that is to implement universal masking again,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.
All communities have been looking at the same guidance, considering whether they are approaching high levels and may need to reconsider universal masking, Freeman said.
“Now, I say all of this based on the pure facts of the guide, but I think this has the potential to turn back into a community-by-community political divide where elected officials and others may or may not want implement universal masking again. . . But we’ll have to see if that legal divide comes back into the picture,” he said. “There’s not a lot of appetite for some of those original mitigation efforts to be implemented again.”
In New York, state officials have encouraged schools and communities to take precautions, such as public masking indoors, as RSV, Covid-19 and the flu circulate, according to a letter from the health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett, and Education Commissioner Betty Rosa.
The letter, issued on Monday, warned of the multiple respiratory viruses that the state’s health facilities are having.
Over the past three weeks, flu hospitalizations in New York have more than doubled and laboratory-confirmed flu cases have nearly tripled, according to the letter.
“In response, we’re calling for a community-wide approach, including schools, to re-take precautions during the holidays and winter that can prevent the spread of respiratory viruses and protect young children, the elderly and people with underlying health conditions.” the commissioners wrote.
The letter said schools and communities should encourage indoor public masking, vaccination and frequent hand washing, among other measures.
“We encourage schools to use their local health departments as a partner and resource in this work,” the commissioners said. “Together, we will ensure that all students in our state have a healthy and safe holiday season.”
CDC’s community-level Covid-19 metrics for US counties are based on three things: new Covid-19 hospitalizations, hospital capacity, and new Covid-19 cases. But the agency is looking to revise those community levels, possibly to include data on other respiratory viruses such as influenza and RSV, Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Monday.
“It’s something that we’re actively looking into at CDC. In the meantime, what I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to wait for CDC action to put on a mask,” he said.
“We know that 5% of the population lives in places with a high community level of Covid-19. We encourage people to wear masks,” he said, adding that people should stay home when sick, practice good hygiene such as washing hands frequently and improve air ventilation in interior spaces
Covid-19 hospitalizations begin to rise after Thanksgiving: More than 34,000 people were admitted to the hospital with Covid-19 last week, a 20% increase from the previous week, according to the CDC. The CDC’s joint forecasts predict a continued increase over the next month or so.
About 1,800 deaths from Covid-19 were reported to the CDC in the last week of November, and joint forecasts predict deaths from Covid-1 will remain stable for the next month or so.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, who steps down this month as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he is not afraid to recommend a return to masking in some circumstances as the nation faces a triple threat of Covid-19, flu. and RSV.
“I’m not talking about imposing anything,” Fauci said on “NBC Nightly News” on Wednesday. “I’m talking about the common sense of saying, ‘You know, I really don’t want to take the risk of getting infected, and even more so of passing it on to someone who is a vulnerable member of my family.'”