CDC loosens mask guidance — will Austin Public Health, AISD follow?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will update its guidance surrounding mask wearing, sources familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.

AUSTIN (KXAN) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dramatically updated its guidance surrounding mask wearing Friday to allow most Americans to ditch masks and many school districts to no longer recommend universal masking.

CDC leaders said Thursday community risk levels will now be determined by three metrics: new hospitalizations for COVID-19, current hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and new COVID-19 cases.

That framework will put counties in "low," "medium" or "high" risk. In both the low and medium levels, masking is not recommended for most people, unless they are high risk, for example, someone with underlying medical conditions.

With this update, the CDC now only recommends universal school masking in the high-risk level.

The CDC reported with this update roughly 70% of the country will be able to shed their masks under this guidance. Travis County falls in the low-risk category under this new guidance.

But as has been the case throughout the pandemic, local rules can be stronger than CDC recommendations, and in Austin-Travis County's case, Stage 4 COVID-19 risk-based guidelines still recommend masks in public spaces for everyone regardless of vaccination status.

Austin Public Health said it plans to provide an update on its recommendations Tuesday.

The shift from Stage 5 to Stage 4 guidelines happened only a day before the CDC announcement. Stage 4 recommendations include the following:   

• Fully vaccinated and/or boosted individuals should wear masks when gathering with people outside of their household, traveling, dining and shopping.  
• Partially or unvaccinated individuals and those who need their booster dose should wear masks, avoid gatherings with people outside of their household, only travel and shop if essential and choose takeaway/curbside options for dining. Get fully vaccinated and boosted as soon as possible. 

Meanwhile, the Austin Independent School District sent a survey to parents with the message, “In light of the sharp decline in COVID-19 cases, we need your input prior to resisting our pandemic protocols, which currently include mandatory masking.”

KXAN reached out to Austin Public Health to talk to professionals about whether the CDC guidance will change Austin's current COVID-19 risk-based guidelines model.

"Austin Public Health is considering the new guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We are weighing those changes with local data and the understanding that our community will host multiple events in a few weeks, including a major international film and music festival. We know the benefits of masking coupled with vaccines are clear and have protected our community time and again," a spokesperson for APH said in a statement.

We also got some answers on that from Dr. Desmar Walkes, the local health authority, last week when we asked about the possibility of the CDC loosening mask guidance before an announcement was officially made by the national health organization. Here was the interaction.

Reporter: "The CDC director said this week that they wanted to quote, 'give people a break' from wearing masks. Would adjustments be made in the risk-based guidelines should the CDC pass down new mask recommendations?"

Walkes: "We are living in a community where we are making adjustments in our risk-based guidelines based on data that we collect, and then we assess with modeling through our professionals that are biostatisticians. This is a process that has been undertaken throughout this pandemic and will continue to be. We have a unique set of circumstances in our community. We have decided that we are not going to mandate vaccinations, and we've decided that personal choice is important and working within the framework of where we are as a community requires that we have community acceptance and buy in to those things that we've all collectively agreed to do. So with that in mind, we will take the recommendations of the CDC, align ourselves with those recommendations and then develop risk-based guidance that incorporates all of those things."

UT Austin COVID-19 Modeling Consortium

Dr. Spencer Fox is the associate director of the University of Texas at Austin's COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. He said we are in a downward swing with omicron. But how will new masking guidelines impact that?

"We're not really sure. It's likely that there may be some increases in transmission, but we're not sure if that will lead to a new surge or just kind of a slowing of the decline we're currently seeing," Fox said.

Fox said the only way Travis County could enter into the high-risk level is hospital admissions would have to reach a rate that start endangering hospital capacities.

"I think we need to prepare for the unexpected," Fox explained. "It's important to realize that the CDC mask guidelines are made to be on ramps and off ramps to wearing masks. So right now since the community is getting a little safe, we're entering the off ramp phase of masking. But if we start seeing the signs of a new surge, these guidelines provide an avenue to start recommending people to wear masks again."

Fox said he thinks the CDC is actually recommending we move toward an individual choice about wearing masks.