CDC Just Warned State Leaders About This Mask Problem

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 15, 6:28AM EST

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CDC Just Warned State Leaders About This Mask Problem — © Pool / Getty Images News via Getty Images

The leadership of the CDC has raised an alarm about the decision of some state leaders to kill mask-wearing initiatives. While the spread of COVID-19 may have slowed in recent weeks, the disease still represents a terrible danger. A curtailing of a basic rule about the prevention of more infections could trigger another surge in the disease.

The spread of the disease in the U.S. can hardly be considered over. Confirmed cases number 27,837,755. While the increase no longer hits over 200,000 most days, a daily jump of 100,000 remains common. The U.S. continues to have about 25% of the global case count. Deaths number 488,364, and rise by 3,000 most days. Experts worry 600,000 total deaths by summer remains a possibility.

Another reason for the CDC warning takes into account vaccination rates. Currently, the count vaccination doses delivered stands at 70,057,800. “Shots given” number 52,884,356. Only 12% of Americans have received one dose, and just 4.2% have gotten the two shots necessary for close to full protection.

Variants of COVID-19 which may spread faster than the version of the disease most prevalent in America may be more lethal and could resist current vaccines. The CDC puts the count of these cases at 1,173 across 40 states. Florida’s infection count for the B.1.1.7, B.1.351, or P.1 variant has reached 379. The figure in California has reached 186. Some experts believe the B.1.1.7 could be the most widespread version of the disease by March.

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Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”, “We still have 100,000 cases a day. We still have somewhere between 1,500 and 3,500 deaths per day. And yet we see some communities relaxing some of their mitigation strategies. We are nowhere out of the woods.” States which have relaxed standards, or made the decision to soon include Montana, Iowa, and North Dakota. Ironically, North Dakota remains among the hardest hit state since the pandemic began just over a year ago.

Additionally, anecdotal evidence shows that mask-wearing and social distancing never became the norm in many states and cities. According to The Hill, “South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) on Tuesday posted a photo of her and more than a dozen of her staffers at her home without masks, drawing backlash from some.”

The CDC’s rules about methods to cut the spread of the disease have not changed: 1) wear masks, 2) keep six feet (two arm lengths) from other people, and 3) avoid crowds. Walensky says the “wear masks” part of that should not change, under any circumstances.

Click here to read how many people have died of COVID-19 in every state.

Click here to see the county where the most people are dying of COVID-19

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.