The CDC’s Relaxed Policy on Masking

By: Bill Kopsky, Executive Director

Why are the CDC’s new masking guidelines problematic and unsafe? Masks are one of the most effective, least intrusive public health tools we have in the pandemic. They work — as a new study here in Arkansas showed that schools with mandatory masking had over 20 percent fewer COVID cases than schools without mask mandates. I realize that many people feel “over” the pandemic, but COVID is not done with us yet.

The CDC’s relaxed masking guidelines are based on hospitalization rates, not infection rates like the old guidelines. And it is true that if you are vaccinated your risk of hospitalization and severe disease is quite low. And even if you are unvaccinated your risk of death is lower because of improved treatments. 

BUT relying on hospitalization rates is more problematic public health indicators than the old standard of infection rates for a variety of reasons:

  1. Hospitalization rates do not reflect your risk of getting infected, and your risk of getting infected in Arkansas is still quite high. We currently have an infection rate of about 15 new cases per day per 100,000 people in Arkansas. The CDC’s old guidelines say this indicates high community spread, high risk of getting infected, and mask up. We would need a rate of less than five new cases per day per 100,000 people to have a low enough community spread to unmask in public under the old standards. We are currently WAY better than a few weeks ago when our infection rate was near 50 new cases per day per 100,000 and we’re trending in the right direction — but our current rate is still more than three times what the CDC used to consider safe. 

  2. Unmasked, and especially unvaccinated and unmasked, people still pose a grave threat to more vulnerable people in your community if you get infected. It’s true that your personal risk of being hospitalized or dying is lower, but one of the awful things about COVID is that you are contagious days before you know you are infected. Arkansas has an aging, low income and generally unhealthy population that is already more vulnerable. Thirty percent of our population is Black or brown who are also more vulnerable to serious COVID. Young children can’t yet get vaccinated, and in general our vaccinated and boosted rates are among the worst in the country. The CDC’s guidelines really favor the comfort of people who don’t like masks and are less vulnerable over the significant risk we pose to our more vulnerable neighbors when we find masks inconvenient.

  3. COVID still sucks even if your risk of hospitalization and death is lower. Some “mild” cases still make people quite sick for a week or more. Long COVID is poorly understood and it is still unclear how much protection vaccines offer to prevent long COVID. Vaccines provide major benefits to lower your risk of infection and serious disease, but OMICRON shows a remarkable ability to breakthrough vaccines’ protection and make people sick and contagious.

  4. The new CDC guidelines will be slower to pick up a new wave of infections. Hospitalization rates are lagging indicators of infection. They will not increase substantially until well more than a week after infections increase because it takes the virus that much time to make people seriously ill. We will be slower to identify new waves and variants if we watch hospitalization rates instead of infection rates. 

The CDC’s revised guidelines look intended to solve a political problem instead of a public health one. The political problem is that politicians who have managed the pandemic poorly and have higher infection and death rates are paying very little political costs. Voters in Arkansas don’t seem to mind that Governor Hutchinson has led one of the most lethal pandemic responses in the country. The same is true for other Governors and politicians who’ve had poor COVID responses or even spread misinformation about the pandemic. But voters are making politicians who support masking and other public health measures pay a political price. Now Congress is having a hard time finding bipartisan support for funding for the federal government to do vaccines, monitor variants, develop new treatments and promote public health — an unthinkable position just months ago.

So ready or not — off with the masks! There are a few things you can do to protect yourself and your family:

  1. Get vaccinated and boosted! It is one of our best protections from serious disease. With so many people going maskless, you are at a very high risk of getting quite sick if you are not vaccinated AND boosted. Please just do it!

  2. Stick with your own high-quality mask that fits you well. Masks are incredibly effective when everyone wears them, but they still offer significant protection even when you’re the only one. Make sure it fits well — covers your mouth and nose with no gaps around the edges. A cloth or surgical mask is better than nothing. A KN95 mask offers a higher level of protection. And an N95 mask is substantially even better yet. 

  3. Ask businesses and your political leaders to keep the mask mandates until our infection rates drop below the five new cases per day per 100,000 people that indicates low community spread. Some health officials have argued that 10/100,000 is an acceptable measure. Whatever it is, base it on infection rates that indicate your risk of catching the virus.

I agree with the CDC that hospitalization rates are important, but do not think our public health response should be based on those instead of infection rates that show your true risk of catching the virus. Here are a few articles that have public health officials discussing some of these issues:

And good luck!


Organized people have power.