Saginaw County Health Department issued the following announcement on Feb 26.
CDC held a press briefing late this afternoon announcing new masking guidance. The new guidelines for assessing "community risk" weigh hospitalizations for COVID-19 and the proportion of beds occupied by COVID-19 patients in local hospitals more heavily than rates of new infections alone. Under this new formula (which we don't have and is not yet reflected on the CDC website), they say nearly 70% of the U.S. population lives in areas considered to be low or medium risk and residents there are advised they can go indoors without masks.
As part of the change, the CDC is dropping its recommendation for universal school masking and instead will recommend masking only in communities at a high level of risk.
The new guidance applies to both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
The move to ease masking guidance, federal officials say, reflects current conditions at this phase of the pandemic, including widespread immunity through vaccination and prior infection as well as better access to testing and treatments.
What we don't know is if Saginaw County falls within the 70% or the 30%. As of today, our two county hospitals are treating 55 COVID-19 related cases, with 11 in the ICU, and zero pediatric cases. Emergency department cases related to COVID-19 are down to 9%. These indicators have fallen steadily for several weeks.
Stay tuned for more.
Original source can be found here.
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