With cases of COVID-19 continuing to fall, communities across the country are peeling second pandemic restrictions, and as a consequence, many Americans are ditching their masks. There are however a few places where you ’ re all but guaranteed to see them — on airplanes, in the metro and in many health care settings, for exemplify — but by and large, once-ubiquitous face coverings are becoming less so.
New guidelines introduced in February from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) say that ’ s OK, at least for the majority of U.S. counties that light up green on a map on the CDC ’ s web site that takes into account hospitalizations, hospital capacity and COVID-19 cases. But older adults might want to think twice ahead heading out the door without their N95s .
“ All adults, and specially older adults and medically vulnerable people, absolutely have to remain argus-eyed, ” says Nicole Iovine, M.D., an infectious disease doctor and headman hospital epidemiologist at UF Health in Gainesville, Florida. Adults 50 and older account for more than 90 percentage of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. and about 70 percentage of hospitalizations. Despite late improvements in both metrics, Iovine cautions, “ This pandemic is still going on, and there ’ s no reason that there won ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate be another surge. ”
Cases are once again rising in Europe, most likely due to the outspread of omicron ’ second sibling version, BA.2, and experts say these trends could foreshadow a alike practice at home. In the U.S., the BA.2 subvariant, which is more catching than omicron but not thought to be more dangerous, is now creditworthy for closely a quarter of new COVID-19 cases. A few weeks ago, it was to blame for about 7 percentage of infections. What ’ s more, effluent surveillance is registering higher levels of the virus, which could indicate that infections are on the resurrect.
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Older Americans shouldn ’ metric ton isolate themselves, but they “ can not wholly let their guard down and fall back to what we consider normal demeanor, ” adds Rama Thyagarajan, M.D., an adjunct professor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas at Austin ’ second Dell Medical School. That may work for younger folks, who are less likely to get hard ill from COVID-19, she explains, “ but it does not work for seniors, ” who are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection and severe disease .
All the experts interviewed by AARP agree : Grocery stores, theaters, hair’s-breadth salons and other public indoor venues are safer with a mask. several studies, including one published by the CDC in February, show that masks help control the go around of the disease. Researchers found that people who wore an N95 in populace settings were 83 percentage less likely to test positivist for COVID-19 than those who wore no mask.
There may be times when it ’ sulfur OK to go without one, but that hinges on each person ’ randomness situation and risk allowance .