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As states across the country begin to relax their indoor mask mandates amid a decline in Covid case numbers, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests the new measures might be coming too soon.
Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Oregon announced Monday that masks will soon no longer be required in schools. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom will let the state’s indoor masking mandate end for vaccinated people on Feb. 15, although schoolchildren and the unvaccinated will still need to wear masks.
But according to data from the CDC, people in more than 3,200 counties — or 99 percent of the country — should be wearing masks regardless of their vaccination status. The CDC suggests wearing masks in places where the new case rate is higher than 50 cases per 100,000, or the testing positivity rate exceeds 8 percent.
