ealth experts expect one other surge of COVID-19 cases to return this fall as recent subvariants of the virus spread, but will people have to mask up to guard themselves?
Mask mandates have eased across the country because the height of the pandemic once they were a requirement in most states in public settings. Now, the return of masks is being considered to forestall what might be one other COVID outbreak.
Current COVID cases and hospitalizations are declining after a peak in July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated. Average every day COVID-related deaths at the moment are around 400.
About 67% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and about 35% have received at the very least one booster shot, in line with data from the agency. Experts agree that vaccinations are the most effective method to prevent serious illness from COVID. But with one other wave of the virus on the horizon, some people will want to rethink face masks for defense.
“My advice to people can be to mask when in indoor crowded spaces,” Dr. Stuart Ray, a professor of drugs at Johns Hopkins University, told ABC News. “I’ve spent an excellent deal of time with patients who’ve COVID and haven’t contracted the infection from what I can tell, each from antibody testing and from a scarcity of syndrome.”
While masks may provide protection against the spread of COVID-19, convincing Americans to wear them again could also be more of a challenge. Currently, most healthcare facilities require face masks, together with public transit in cities akin to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Denver, ABC News said, but much of the nation has dropped mandates.
“I feel that folks are really bored with this pandemic and there’s, culturally, little or no appetite for mandates, for masking,” Ray told the news outlet. “And so, it is a steep climb to inform people unless there’s a specific context during which it is vital, like a health care setting when there are lots of vulnerable people.”
But one other surge of the virus could push people into wearing masks. “If we were to return right into a highly disruptive surge, then the appetite for a mandate might change, because people realize that a bunch of essential services are being disrupted,” Ray said. “If hospitals got stressed by the surge, then I feel we would see mandates returned.”
While there are not any state mask mandates in place, the necessity to wear one is as much as a person and their risk level, Ray told ABC News.
“You to weigh your personal susceptibility, your personal tolerance for the chance of the long-term complications, that are still somewhat unknown and the risks that you just might pose to people you look after either professionally or personally at home,” Ray said.
“Now, some people may determine — and that is the judgment part — that they simply don’t care that they do not think that it is a big deal, and that they will just get infected and that they are likely to not be hospitalized.”