CDC: Many healthy Americans can take a break from masks – latest updates

Friday, February 25, 2022

CDC: Many healthy Americans can take a break from masks

Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks under new US guidelines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outlined the new set of measures for communities where Covid-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals.

The new system greatly changes the look of the CDC's risk map and puts more than 70% of the US population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Thos e are the people who can stop wearing masks, the agency said.

The agency is still advising that people, including schoolchildren, wear masks where the risk of Covid-19 is high. That's the situation in about 37% of US counties, where about 28% of Americans reside. 

The new recommendations do not change the requirement to wear masks on public transportation and indoors in airports, train stations and bus stations. The CDC guidelines for other indoor spaces aren’t binding, meaning cities and institutions even in areas of low risk may set their own rules.

US sends 10M Covid vaccine doses to Bangladesh

The United States is shipping more than 10 million Covid-19 vaccine doses to Bangladesh, making the country the biggest recipient of Washington's global donations, the White House has said.

"This is our single largest donation to date and will make Bangladesh our largest recipient of doses," a White House official told AFP news agency.

The latest batch amounts to 10,001,160 Pfizer doses, sent through Covax, the global distribution initiative co-led by public-private partnership Gavi.

Divided into three separate shipments, the donated doses are all due to have arrived by next Monday, starting with an initial 3,187,504 doses on Friday, the official said.

This comes after another 7.4 million doses were sent to Bangladesh just a month ago.

UK reports 31,933 new cases and 120 deaths

Britain has reported 31,933 new cases of Covid-19 and another 120 deaths within 28 days of a positive test, according to government data.

The number of cases has fallen 20 percent in the last seven days compared with the previous seven days, while deaths have fallen 18 percent.

Türkiye reports over 71,700 new cases

Türkiye has reported 71,736 new coronavirus cases.

According to the Health Ministry, 266 deaths and 90,117 recoveries were recorded over the past day, and almost 454,000 virus tests were done.

To counter the spread of the virus, Turkiye has administered over 145.5 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines since it launched an immunization drive in January 2021.

Coronavirus pandemic not over, German health minister warns

Germany's health minister has warned that the coronavirus pandemic isn't over yet, noting that the country is still seeing record infections and high numbers of deaths.

The Robert Koch Institute, Germany's disease control agency, reported 210,743 newly confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 226 deaths in the past 24 hours. Officials say laboratory data suggests there may be a large number of undetected cases.

“We need to be careful not to think that the pandemic is over,” Health Minister Karl Lauterbach told reporters in Berlin.

A subtype of the omicron variant, dubbed BA.2, could lead to a further rise in cases, he said.

Lauterbach urged Germany's 16 states not to relax restrictions faster than recently agreed.

He rejected the idea of declaring a so-called Freedom Day as some other countries have done, saying it would give people a false sense of security. Unlike many comparable countries, Germany also has a higher rate of unvaccinated people over 60 who are particularly vulnerable to serious illness if they contract Covid-19, he said.

Hong Kong reports over 10,000 Covid-19 cases for first time

Hong Kong has reported another sharp jump in new cases to more than 10,000 in the latest 24-hour period as it battles its worst outbreak of the pandemic.

The new daily case count reached 10,010, health officials said, after topping 6,000 last week and 8,000 earlier this week in a spiralling outbreak. 

The city has been reporting about 50 deaths a day, many among the unvaccinated elderly.

The government has announced plans to test everyone in the semi-autonomous Chinese city of 7.4 million people next month as it tries to adhere to a zero-Covid policy modelled on the strict mainland China approach.

German daily infections still high, pandemic 'not over'

Germany does not have leeway to ease restrictions more quickly, and Germans should not think that the pandemic is over as the number of new daily infections is still very high, German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said.

"We have absolutely no scope for an accelerated opening," Lauterbach said, adding that it was an unacceptable situation that Covid-19 deaths were between 200 and 300 every day.

Germany reported 210,743 new infections on Friday, with the 7-day incidence rate slightly dropping to around 1,259 infections per 100,000 people, from 1,265 a day earlier.

China posts highest imported cases in nearly two years

China has reported the highest daily count of cases arriving from outside the mainland in nearly two years, with infections mostly from Hong Kong as the financial hub grapples with a wave of infections.

The mainland detected a total of 142 imported cases with confirmed symptoms for Thursday, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Friday.

That marks the highest imported caseload since the authority began classifying domestically transmitted cases and infected travellers from outside the mainland separately, in March 2020.

CDC to significantly ease pandemic mask guidelines 

The Biden administration will significantly loosen federal mask-wearing guidelines to protect against Covid-19 transmission, meaning most Americans will no longer be advised to wear masks in indoor public settings.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday will announce a change to the metrics it uses to determine whether to recommend face coverings, shifting from looking at case counts to a more holistic view of risk from the coronavirus to a community. 

Under current guidelines, masks are recommended for people residing in communities of substantial or high transmission — roughly 95 percent of US counties, according to the latest data.

Brazil's Covid death toll rises by hundreds 

Brazil has recorded 93,757 new coronavirus cases and 971 Covid-19 deaths in the last 24 hours, the Health Ministry said.

Brazil has registered 28,578,647 cases since the pandemic began, while the official death toll has risen to 647,390, according to ministry data.

Mexico reports more cases and fatalities

Mexico has recorded 18,252 new coronavirus cases and 362 additional deaths, according to Health Ministry data, bringing the total confirmed number of cases to 5,473,489 and the death toll to 317,303 since the pandemic started.

China to step in to steer Hong Kong's crisis

As Covid-19 rages across Hong Kong at the start of a sensitive political year for China and President Xi Jinping, Beijing is determined not to be embarrassed and undermined as it was by the often-violent protests that rocked the city in 2019.

In the past week, since Xi told the city its "overriding mission" was to control the worsening crisis, Hong Kong has stepped up anti-Covid measures, including plans for mass testing buttressed by equipment, testing vehicles and personnel from the mainland.

'World to face climate crisis after pandemic'

Although the world is already facing a climate crisis, its effects will be felt more after the pandemic ends, a top official from the Union of Municipalities of Türkiye said.

Speaking at a panel regarding the key roles of local administrations to combat climate crisis at the Climate Council, Birol Ekici, secretary-general of Union of Municipalities of Türkiye, said that the country had a huge need to organise such an international climate council.

Referring to the motto of "think globally, act locally", Ekici stated that traditional development models brutally consume nature and it has become clear that local administrations must be more active if they want to protect the earth, climate and environment.