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Face masks may return amid holiday 'tripledemic' of covid, flu and RSV (WAPO)
https://web.archive.org/web/20221207224347/https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/07/face-masks-tripledemic-flu-covid-rsv/The CDC in February announced a new system of covid community levels that would tie masking recommendations to metrics illustrating the strain of covid on hospitals rather than the prevalence of infections. The system isn’t designed to track levels of other respiratory viruses.
Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said most public health authorities are not considering bringing back mask mandates because they are following the CDC approach, which recommends mask-wearing once community levels of covid are high. He noted that tracking community levels of covid doesn’t capture the broader toll of respiratory viruses.
“If you lumped RSV, influenza and covid together and started doing community indicators that the CDC is doing for covid right now, there would be a lot more places going into orange and red zones,” Plescia said. “Maybe the American public is done with mask-wearing, but you do wonder can you get a place where you can say ‘things are getting bad right now, we need people to wear masks in public settings.’”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) held a news conference Wednesday about respiratory viruses in which she urged constituents to get vaccinated and to get tested, but did not emphasize masking.
Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said most public health authorities are not considering bringing back mask mandates because they are following the CDC approach, which recommends mask-wearing once community levels of covid are high. He noted that tracking community levels of covid doesn’t capture the broader toll of respiratory viruses.
“If you lumped RSV, influenza and covid together and started doing community indicators that the CDC is doing for covid right now, there would be a lot more places going into orange and red zones,” Plescia said. “Maybe the American public is done with mask-wearing, but you do wonder can you get a place where you can say ‘things are getting bad right now, we need people to wear masks in public settings.’”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) held a news conference Wednesday about respiratory viruses in which she urged constituents to get vaccinated and to get tested, but did not emphasize masking.
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