WASHINGTON — Americans should be wearing a mask indoors whenever they’re outside their own home, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending for the first time as coronavirus surges across the country.
The recommendation on mask-wearing in all indoor sites came in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report, which cited a high level transmission of the virus as the ongoing holiday season and colder weather have driven more people indoors.
“Consistent and correct use of face masks is a public health strategy critical to reducing respiratory transmission” of the virus, the report stated, adding that this was particularly important “in light of estimates that approximately one-half of new infections are transmitted by persons who have no symptoms.”
Face masks are most important in indoor spaces, the advisory said, and outdoors when 6 feet of separation can’t be maintained. Within households, face masks should also be used when a member is infected or has had recent potential exposure to the virus, according to the CDC guidance.
Masks work so well that certain communities should consider giving them out, the CDC team said.
“A community-level plan for distribution of face masks to specific populations, such as those who might experience barriers to access, should be developed,” the CDC team wrote in the agency’s weekly report.
“To preserve the supply of N95 respirators for health-care workers and other medical first responders, CDC recommends nonvalved, multilayer cloth masks or nonmedical disposable masks for community use,” the team added.
Along with masks and social distancing, the list includes: Avoiding nonessential indoor spaces; increasing testing; promptly identifying, quarantining and testing close contacts of persons with coronavirus; safeguarding persons most at risk for severe illness; supplying essential workers with adequate personal protective equipment; postponing travel; increasing room air ventilation; and, eventually, achieving widespread availability and high community coverage with effective vaccines.
“These actions,” the report said, “will provide a bridge to a future with wide availability and high community coverage of effective vaccines, when safe return to more everyday activities in a range of settings will be possible.”
Meanwhile the number of Americans hospitalized with the virus hit an all-time high in the United States on Thursday at 100,667, according to the COVID Tracking Project. That figure has more than doubled over the past month, while new daily cases are averaging 210,000 and deaths are averaging 1,800 per day, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Health officials fear the pandemic will get worse before it gets better because of delayed effects from Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans disregarded warnings to stay home and celebrate only with members of their household.
At the same time, hospitals — and their workers — were stretched to the limit.
In Pennsylvania, almost half of all hospitals in the south-central region and a third of those in the southwest anticipated staffing shortages within a week, according to the Department of Health.
The state’s top health official, Dr. Rachel Levine, said Thursday that 85 percent of the state’s intensive care beds were occupied and modeling shows they’ll be full this month. Meanwhile nurses in the Philadelphia area said the overwhelming number of coronavirus patients was affecting the quality of care they can provide.
“I hear from physicians and from hospital leadership all the time about how strained the hospitals are,” Dr. Levine said.
Officials also are concerned that Americans will let down their guard once states begin administering vaccines.
It will take weeks to months before many of the nation’s most vulnerable residents can be immunized, White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said Thursday. Until then Americans should not hold indoor gatherings with people they don’t live with or take off their masks when they’re outdoors, and should continue to keep their distance from others and wash their hands, she said.
“I think everyone can see that this current surge that we’re experiencing is much faster and broader across the United States and is lasting longer,” Dr. Birx said after a meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York.
Nationwide the coronavirus is blamed for almost 277,000 deaths and 14 million confirmed infections.
An influential modeling group at the University of Washington said Friday the expected U.S. vaccine rollout will mean 9,000 fewer deaths by April 1. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation predicts that warmer temperatures and then rising vaccination rates will lead to steady declines in the daily death toll starting in February.
But even with a vaccine, the death toll could reach 770,000 by April 1 if states do not act to bring current surges under control, the group said.
States learned only this week how many doses to expect and when, and received guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommending that health-care workers and nursing home patients get the first doses. That meant that some had to make last-minute adjustments.
“2020 has taught us to plan for what you can and then expect something to happen that you never dreamed would happen,” Dr. Michelle Fiscus, medical director of the Tennessee Department of Health’s immunization program, said during a Friday webinar. “I can’t tell you how many plans we’ve crumpled up and thrown away.”
First Published December 5, 2020, 4:51 a.m.
