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Dane County health officials: Indoor masks 'strongly encouraged' for all, including vaccinated - Madison.com
Jul 28, 2021 1 min, 32 secs
With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changing course Tuesday on indoor masking for the fully vaccinated in some places of the country, Dane County leaders are strongly encouraging everyone to bust out the masks again when they're inside.

The joint city-county health department issued a masking advisory Tuesday in response to the CDC's updated guidance on masking for the fully vaccinated amid a surge in coronavirus cases — particularly in unvaccinated pockets of the country — driven by the highly transmissible delta variant of the virus.

While Dane County has comparatively high vaccination rates and low transmission rates, COVID-19 numbers are growing "fairly quickly" in the community, said Janel Heinrich, director of Public Health Madison and Dane County, and the masking advisory is meant to head off another surge locally.

"When you're indoors with people outside your household, even if you are vaccinated, you could spread COVID to someone who is not or who is immuno-compromised," Heinrich said.

The CDC now says fully vaccinated people, who are at significantly less risk of getting seriously ill or being hospitalized, should wear facemasks inside if they live in an area considered to have substantial or high transmission.

In early June, Public Health let its coronavirus restrictions and accompanying mask mandate expire after the CDC had said in May that fully vaccinated could largely return to pre-pandemic lives.

The CDC cited new information about the delta variant's ability to spread among vaccinated people as a reason to update the masking recommendations.

When earlier strains of the virus predominated, infected vaccinated people were found to have low levels of virus and were deemed unlikely to spread the virus much, CDC Director Dr.

But with the delta variant, the level of virus in infected vaccinated people is "indistinguishable" from the level of virus in the noses and throats of unvaccinated people, Walensky said.

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