Covid masks are starting to creep back into daily life for thousands of Americans.
Schools across the country are reinstating mandates or strongly recommending the use of face coverings – despite evidence they harmed children’s education and health.
And private companies and universities have also begun to flirt with mandates, but there is no indication that state or federal mask mandates will return.
When asked last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it had no intentions to bring back compulsory masks in any setting.
Instead, a spokesperson said: ‘Anyone may choose to wear a mask in crowded or poorly ventilated indoor areas, including on public transportation and in transportation hubs at any time.’
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Americans wear face masks as they wait in line to vote in the 2020 presidential election. Some colleges and businesses are reinstating mask mandates as Covid cases rise in the US
Covid is no longer the deadly threat it once was. While hospital admissions involving the virus have been rising for weeks, they are still about 10 times lower than levels seen at the peak in January 2022, and deaths are about 40 times below the peak in late 2020.
Many doctors now compare the virus to the common cold or the flu, which while disruptive and deadly among vulnerable groups, will not cause serious illness in the vast majority of people.
The transition from deadly virus to manageable seasonal illness can be attributed to the high levels of immunity among Americans from infection or vaccination, plus an arsenal of highly effective therapies and drugs.
For these reasons, the federal government declared the pandemic over in May this year and ended the public health emergency, scrapping legal requirements to mask, isolate, test and get vaccinated.
A Maryland elementary school sparked outrage this week after saying students must don tightly-fitted N95 masks for 10 days, despite only a handful of schoolkids testing positive for Covid.
Additionally, a recent editorial by the American College of Physicians called for mask mandates to return to healthcare facilities.
A Kaiser Permanente hospital in California and several in New York state reinstated mandates for at least several weeks.
Hollywood movie studio Lionsgate also reinstated its mask requirement briefly last month before quickly reversing its decision.
A YouGov poll done between August 17 and August 21 found that one in seven Americans said they are still wearing a mask ‘some of the time’, and the same proportion said they would ‘think less of’ someone wearing a mask in public.
Yahoo conducted the survey! and YouGov using a representative sample of 1,665 US adults who were interviewed online.
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