The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated its guidance on coronavirus with the recommendation that all people wear face masks in enclosed areas and other high-risk areas, regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not.
Previously, the CDC had said that those who were fully vaccinated could avoid the mask in closed places. This Friday the reason for this change in position is known.
And it is that new scientific information indicates that the Delta variant, unlike other variants of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, can be also transmitted by vaccinated people.
“The mask recommendation was updated to prevent those in the public who are vaccinated can transmit the virus without knowing it to others, including their loved ones who are not vaccinated or who are immunocompromised, “said the CDC this Friday.
As the chickenpox
In statements to the CNN television network, the director of the CDC, Rochelle Walensky, said that it is “one of the most transmissible viruses that we know: measles , chickenpox, this; everyone is at the same level. ”
On average, an infected person, vaccinated or not, with symptoms or not, can infect eight or nine more people (the original variant, more similar to a common cold, it could be spread to two people.)
In response to an email from the New York Times, the CDC director said it is not yet clear how common infections are in vaccinated people and how long the virus remains in the body in those cases.
An outbreak in the state of Massachusetts among vaccinated and unvaccinated people, after the July 4 holiday, was fundamental to arrive at these new recommendations.
Vaccination
The CDC has emphasized that the best defense against the Delta variant is still vaccination.
In the United States there are almost 49, 000 new infections per day, despite the fact that -nationally- a 49. 8% of the population is fully vaccinated.
However, the great Most of the people hospitalized or who have died had not been vaccinated.
“The mask is a defense against the spread of covid – 19 but make no mistake, vaccines are the best defense to avoid a severe illness; really the best defense, ”United States President Joe Biden said Thursday.
Biden spoke of the new cases of contagion such as the “pandemic of the unvaccinated” and called on states and local governments to offer $ 100 dollars to the newly vaccinated.
Controversy
The use of masks is a controversial issue in the United States and has been politicized since the pandemic began.
US citizens interviewed by the BBC expressed their concerns about this new information.
“It feels like we are going back in the beginning; I don’t want to wear a mask indoors, but the Delta variant is undoubtedly a concern, “said Agustín Cortéz from Texas.
For Angélica Mata, from California, the CDC’s decision that those fully vaccinated could not use a mask was wrong: “It gave people the impression that the pandemic had come to an end and it is not, now this recommendation to use it again is not a surprise.”
For his part, Jason Munshi-South from Connecticut said the new recommendations are not very helpful.
“There is not much to be gained by telling fully vaccinated people to wear masks, since people who did not want to be vaccinated are not going to use them.”
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