Xinhua News Agency, Washington, February 28 (Reporter Tan Jingjing) The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently updated the guidelines for epidemic prevention. As the new crown epidemic situation eases, more than 70% of the American people no longer need to wear clothes in indoor public places Facial mask. However, public health experts said that they should still be prepared for various possibilities, and once the epidemic situation deteriorates again, epidemic prevention measures need to be tightened again.
On January 31, 2022, pedestrians wearing masks walked on the streets of Washington, the capital of the United States. Published by Xinhua News Agency (photographed by Shen Ting)
According to the latest guidelines, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will determine the proportion of hospital beds occupied by new crown patients in various regions and the number of new hospitalized cases. The number of new confirmed cases and the number of newly confirmed cases are used to determine the local community transmission level of the new crown, and divide low-risk, medium-risk and high-risk areas, and take corresponding preventive measures in different areas.
According to the guidelines, people in low-risk areas should be vaccinated and boosted, and virus testing should be carried out in a timely manner if symptoms of COVID-19 appear; in medium-risk areas, on the basis of these two measures, people at high risk of severe illness should be vaccinated. Consult medical institutions in a timely manner whether they need to wear masks and take other preventive measures; in high-risk areas, on the basis of all measures in medium-risk areas, people also need to wear masks in indoor public places.
According to the website of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70% of the people in the United States are currently in low-risk or medium-risk areas, so people in these areas no longer need to wear masks in indoor public places.
However, Rochelle Warrenski, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that no one can predict how the new coronavirus will develop in the future, and it is still necessary to prepare for various possibilities. It is hoped that when the level of virus transmission declines, the public can be temporarily relieved of epidemic prevention measures such as wearing masks, but it is necessary to ensure that they have the ability to restore these measures should the epidemic worsen again in the future.
Some public health experts say that given the vast majority of people in the U.S. who are vulnerable to Covid-19 are now fully vaccinated and the number of hospitalizations and deaths due to the Omicron strain is declining, So the latest CDC guidelines are feasible. But some experts worry that loosening epidemic prevention measures may lead to an increase in the number of confirmed cases and hospitalizations; in addition, it will be difficult to tighten these epidemic prevention measures once new mutant strains that have the ability to escape existing antibodies emerge.
The U.S. epidemic has shown signs of easing recently, with indicators such as confirmed cases, deaths, and hospitalizations continuing to decline. The latest weekly epidemic report released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that as of the 23rd, the average daily increase of confirmed cases in the United States on the 7th was about 75,000, a decrease of 37.7% from the previous week; The previous week decreased by 18.8%; the average daily increase of hospitalized cases on the 7th as of the 22nd was 6,060, a decrease of 29.9% from the previous week.
The epidemic statistics released by Johns Hopkins University in the United States show that as of the evening of the 27th Eastern Time, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of the new crown in the United States was nearly 78.94 million, and the cumulative number of deaths exceeded 948,000.