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Several counties in the Chicago and Illinois area are experiencing “substantial” or “high” community transmission of COVID-19, placing them in the categories in which fully vaccinated people should resume wearing a face mask. interior, according to federal health officials.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their guidelines on Tuesday to recommend that fully vaccinated people re-wear masks indoors in areas of the United States that experience significant or high transmission of COVID-19.
The new guidelines marked a reversal from previous recommendations that fully vaccinated people could remove masks in most settings.
According to the CDC’s COVID-19 data tracker, a map showing community transmission levels for every county in the United States, at least eight counties in the Chicago area are experiencing “substantial” community transmission on Thursday.
These counties include: Will, DuPage, McHenry, Boone, Winnebago, DeKalb, LaSalle and Grundy.
Many counties in southern and central Illinois are also classified as substantial transmission, labeled in orange, or high transmission, labeled in red. Some central and northern counties have moderate transmission, labeled in yellow, while only two are colored blue for low transmission.
The agency is using two metrics to group U.S. counties into the four levels of community transmission: the number of new cases per 100,000 population and the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests over the past week.
If a county has reported 50-100 cases per 100,000 population over a seven-day period or has an 8-10% positivity rate, it falls into the “substantial transmission” level, while those reporting 100 cases or more per 100,000 or have a positivity rate of at least 10% are labeled as “high transmission”. These are the two groups for which the CDC recommends wearing masks.
The CDC also said on Tuesday that fully vaccinated people “might also choose to mask themselves regardless of the level of transmission, particularly if they or a member of their household are immunocompromised or at increased risk of serious illness, or if a member of their household is not vaccinated “.
The Illinois Department of Public Health said Tuesday it “fully embraces” the updated CDC guidelines.
The IDPH also said the state will follow the CDC’s new recommendations for K-12 schools, recommending universal indoor masking among teachers, staff, students and visitors to schools, regardless of the age. vaccination status.
“As data continues to show the effectiveness of the three COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized in the United States, including against the Delta variant, we are still seeing the virus spreading rapidly among the unvaccinated,” said the director of IDPH, Dr Ngozi Ezike in a statement. , noting that COVID cases and hospitalizations continue to increase, especially among those not vaccinated against the virus.
“The risk is greater for everyone if we don’t stop the continued spread of the virus and the Delta variant,” Ezike said. “We know that masking can help prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and its variants. Until more people are vaccinated, we join the CDC in recommending for everyone, regardless of vaccination status , wear a mask indoors in high and high transmission areas, and in K-12 schools. “
The IDPH highlighted CDC data on the delta variant showing that the variant is considerably more contagious than other strains and spreads more than twice as easily from person to person.
Ezike and IDPH continued to encourage Illinois residents to get vaccinated.
“According to the CDC, the Delta variant is the cause of some of the vaccine’s breakthrough infections, but even so, most breakthrough infections are mild and the vaccines prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death,” he said. ‘IDPH.
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