A sign outside of a subway station asks riders to wear a mask in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn on July 22, 2021 in New York City.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to announce new guidance that vaccinated people wear masks indoors in certain parts of the U.S., according to reports out Tuesday morning in various media outlets.
As of Tuesday morning, the CDC’s guidance remained the same as was laid out in early May, when it said that fully vaccinated people need not wear masks in most places.
Asked for comment on the media reports, a CDC spokesperson told Barron’s that there will be a briefing on Tuesday at 3 p.m. Eastern Time.
The new guidance comes as yet another indication that governments will increase restrictions in the face of the rising wave of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. As Barron’s reported in a feature this past weekend, the economic impact of this new phase of the pandemic will hinge in part on what restrictions governments put in place, and whether consumers go back into lockdown mode.
The S&P 500 was down 0.7% in afternoon trading on Tuesday, while the Nasdaq Composite index was down 1.5%. It was the first substantial drop since a week ago Monday, when markets tumbled as investors began to notice rising rates of Covid in the U.S.
CNN also reported that the CDC will recommend that everyone in schools from kindergarten through 12th grade wear a mask, including vaccinated people. That comes a week after the American Academy of Pediatrics made the same recommendation.
New cases of Covid aren’t rising as quickly in the U.S. this week as they were last week, and the average number of daily new cases has begun to fail in the U.K., giving some hope that an end might be in sight for the U.S. surge.
Still, the average number of new cases each day is up 144% over the past two weeks, according to the New York Times, while the number of hospitalizations is up 68%.
A wave of local governments instituted their own new mask rules early last week. Local health authorities in cities and counties in California, Nevada, and some other states issued recommendations, and in some cases mandates, that vaccinated people wear masks indoors.
Some local officials pushed back last week on calls for new indoor mask mandates. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week that the city should focus on encouraging vaccinations, and opposed a return to indoor masking for vaccinated people, despite calls from other city officials.
On CNBC last Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, acknowledged a growing number of Covid infections in vaccinated people, and said that while vaccines offer strong protection against severe disease caused by the Delta variant, some people might want to think about masking indoors.
Federal health officials met Sunday to discuss new data, according to a CNN report out Tuesday. The New York Times reported Tuesday morning that the new guidance will only apply to certain areas of the country, though it’s not yet clear which parts.
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