CDC director says the mask lifting requirements are a mistake

Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Sunday that it is too early for states to lift mandates for wearing masks, given the high number of daily coronavirus cases and deaths in the U.S. .

“We still have 100,000 cases a day. We still have somewhere between 1,500 and 3,500 deaths a day,” Walensky said during an interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And yet we see some communities relaxing some of their mitigation strategies. We’re nowhere out of the woods.”

As the spread of the virus in the US slows and the roll-out of vaccines accelerates, states have begun to relax restrictions. Republican governors in Montana and Iowa this month lifted demands for wearing masks. North Dakota’s mask mandate expired in January.

In New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently allowed indoor dining at 25% capacity despite the high risk of contamination in indoor areas and opened stadiums and arenas with limited capacity.

But health experts fear that the rapid spread of more contagious variants could trigger a new surge in the number of cases and deaths in the US. Cases of the more contagious variety first found in Britain, known as B.1.1.7, double approximately every 10 days. the country.

“If we relax these mitigation strategies with increasing transferable variants, we could be in a much more difficult place,” Walensky said. “Now is the time not to give up our watch. Now is the time to double up. ‘

Health officials are urging Americans to tighten and duplicate masks, which provide significant protection against the viral transmission. Recent research from the CDC suggests that tightly worn surgical masks or doubling with a surgical and cloth mask reduces the risk of transmission by up to 96%.

“We need to get our communities back to normal before we can start thinking about giving up our mitigation strategies,” Walensky said.