In light of rising covid-19 vaccination rates, Pennsylvania no longer will mandate that masks be worn in public settings, starting today.
Businesses still may require a mask to be worn, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines still call for masks in public transportation, airports, shelters, prisons and hospitals.
Dr. Graham Snyder, medical director of infection prevention and hospital epidemiology at UPMC, answered questions from TribLIVE about the lifting of the mask mandate.
Why is the mandate being lifted now?
Well, we’re at a good point in the pandemic right now. Vaccination has had an outside influence on how much the virus has circulated in our communities, and we’ve seen the amount of virus drop to much lower levels, certainly, than we experienced over the winter.
So, it’s a time where our public health colleagues in particular have determined the benefits of easing restrictions to society, in general, are probably outweighed by the risk that there would be more transmission if we removed some of those mask mandates.
Who do you recommend should still wear masks despite no requirements to do so?
If you are young and healthy and fully vaccinated, you may choose to rely on just the vaccine layer of protection, because it’s very good and the likelihood of having serious complications is extremely small. However, if you’re somebody who has serious medical conditions — and that includes a compromised immune system, a weakened immune system for whatever reason — the vaccine layer of protection might not be as strong as it is for a healthy person. We have growing evidence that suggests it may not fully protect you at all. It offers its advantages, for sure, but it may not be a full layer of protection.
Therefore, if you have a compromised immune system, you should consider still wearing masks when you are in close proximity to other people.
Some people might choose to wear masks even if they are young and healthy. For example, if you have somebody who is vulnerable to complications of covid-19 in the household, you may still want to protect them from you being contagious — even if you are unlikely to become sick or extremely sick — because you want to protect that person in the household. So, you may still choose to wear a mask when you’re in public in close proximity to other people to protect yourself from being exposed, because the vaccine layer will protect you from being sick or seriously sick, but you may also want to use that mask to keep you from being exposed to you, so you don’t transmit the virus to somebody vulnerable in the household.
So, there are certainly situations where even vaccinated people want to wear masks. And, of course, if you are unvaccinated, you are still susceptible to the virus and potential complications, which the pandemic has proved to us are really serious.
So, the CDC has still given us guidance that, if you are unvaccinated, there are many, many situations where you should be masking to protect yourself and others from the virus.
Are there any settings that everyone should still wear a mask?
Each person’s situation is different, and from the public health perspective as we’ve pulled back on some of these protections, it has shifted from an “everybody should be masking” to a “well it depends on the situation.”
And so, from a public health perspective, we’ve asked individuals to make a personal decision about their situation. I think the factors that each person should think about are: Are you vaccinated or not? Are you vulnerable to complications from disease because of your medical conditions or immune system? Do you have people who are close to you that are vulnerable to complications? And what’s the likelihood that you could be exposed? And that would relate to, how close are people together? How many people are there? Are they vaccinated or not? Are they masked or unmasked? What are the activities taking place? Is it indoors or outdoors? What is the air circulation like?
All of those factors impact or modify the likelihood that the virus could expose somebody and also impact the likelihood that somebody who is exposed may suffer serious complications or transmit to somebody else.
Should unvaccinated people wear masks?
Yes, unvaccinated people should still be masking. Particularly, if you’re in your house or with people in your household, it’s okay to unmask. But outside of the household, it’s still wise from a medical and public health perspective to mask to protect yourself from the virus. Particularly, if you’re vulnerable to complications of disease. The vaccination is good protection against complications of disease, but without that vaccination, people are still vulnerable to complications, even if the disease has become less common.
Could removing the mandate potentially lead to another outbreak for those unvaccinated?
It’s important to emphasize that removing the mandate doesn’t mean that people are required to not wear a mask. People may choose to still wear a mask, and I hope that everybody in our community is understanding that unvaccinated people and vaccinated people may choose to still mask to protect themselves or loved ones around them. So, lifting the mask mandate is a way to help us feel a more sense of normalness as the pandemic, right now, is waning.
But we need to keep in mind that the virus is still in circulation. And there are still people who are vulnerable to complications even if they’re vaccinated.
Do you think that removing mask requirements could mark the end of the pandemic?
Well, to understand when the pandemic is going to end, we have to look at the global situation. Because, for many infections, we may do well in our local area or regions in the United States, with a low prevalence of that infection, but if it’s still circulating globally, it still remains a threat. And that’s very true for covid-19.
It’s a good opportunity to emphasize that things are getting better in the United States. In a very large part because of the strong vaccination effort, and lots of people have chosen to get vaccinated. The more people get vaccinated, the safer we will be as a community.
That’s true here in the United States, that’s why at UPMC we’re working hard to bring vaccines to people in their communities whether through increasing the opportunities to get the vaccine, increasing the connections we make with people and local people in their communities that they respect, like faith leaders and their medical providers because vaccination we can’t really get a high enough rate of vaccination. More vaccination equals more protection. And that’s true for the pandemic globally. For us to be safe in the United States, we need vaccinations rates to increase throughout the world, so that the threat of the virus is reduced everywhere. Otherwise, it will always remain a threat. And many experts are still predicting that this is not going to go away in the United States, that we’re very likely to see an increase in activity, maybe very soon.
What should people keep in mind when traveling outside of the country?
As has been true throughout the pandemic, the amount of virus circulating and how prevalent it is in an area has fluctuated. In some parts of the world, there is very, very low levels of the virus circulating, in some areas of the world there is an intense amount of transmission happening. So, it’s important, if you’re considering traveling, to understand what’s happening in the area you are traveling.
Of course, it’s important to follow local regulations that are in place; they may and are likely to be different than they are here in the United States. It’s a good idea to be vaccinated if you choose to travel.
What do you think people should do with all the masks they have accumulated through the pandemic?
I’d hold onto them, because I don’t think that the pandemic is over. And we are not likely going to be done — even with a strong vaccination effort — with masking for protection.
For example, in the health care setting, we still require masking. And, I don’t know of any hospital that has backed away from using universal masking in patient care areas, because, even if … vaccination has gone well among health care workers and patients, it still represents an unacceptably high risk of transmission of the virus and vulnerable people being exposed.
Jaxon White is a Tribune-Review intern through the Pittsburgh Media Partnership.
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