The Free Press
MANKATO — New federal COVID-19 health guidelines recommend that vaccinated residents in counties with higher COVID-19 rates wear masks indoors, including Le Sueur and Waseca counties.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that while vaccinated people are less likely to become infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, they have the potential to spread the disease to others.
The Star Tribune reports that 32 counties in Minnesota have substantial rates of COVID as of Friday and fall under the new federal guidelines. Besides Le Sueur and Waseca, the counties are: Aitkin, Anoka, Benton, Crow Wing, Dakota, Douglas, Fillmore, Freeborn, Hennepin, Hubbard, Isanti, Kandiyohi, Lake of the Woods, McLeod, Meeker, Nobles, Ramsey, Redwood, Renville, Rice, Rock, Scott, Sherburne, Stearns, Swift, Traverse, Washington, Wilkin, Winona and Wright.
When the federal health agency first announced the indoor masking policy on Tuesday, only 14 Minnesota counties were on the list.
Because the state’s public health emergency has ended, it will be up to local public health agencies in those counties to decide whether to reinstate mask requirements at indoor public locations. Those decisions are expected to be made in the coming days.
The rapidly spreading delta variant has governments and private companies reassessing their mask policies just two months after federal officials said masks were not needed for the fully vaccinated, the Star Tribune reports.
Although the CDC had earlier said that vaccinated people did not have to wear masks indoors, the change was made as more information came to light about the highly infectious delta variant.
“We are seeing that people who are infected with delta have higher viral loads,” state Infectious Disease Director Kris Ehresmann said. “Fully vaccinated people who have a breakthrough illness might be infectious and could potentially spread the virus to others.”
Public health officials continue to stress that getting fully past the pandemic will only happen if more people get vaccinated. Roughly 64% of Minnesotans 12 and older had completed the COVID-19 vaccination series.
Since the pandemic began, Minnesota has confirmed 612,701 infections and had 7,668 fatalities.
