CLEVELAND — In the past few days, major companies like Disney, Walmart and Amazon have made big changes to mask mandates. Starting tomorrow, guests at Disney who are fully vaccinated can leave their masks at home.
And U.S. employees at Amazon and Walmart can skip the masks, too. But as a country? CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky says we're just not there yet.
"We must consider hospital capacity as an additional important barometer," Dr. Walensky said at a COVID-19 briefing at the White House on Wednesday. "We want to give people a break from things like mask-wearing when these metrics are better and then have the ability to reach for them again should things worsen."
The new benchmark for mask mandates is something local health leaders say they're on board with. It's not just about the individual cases; it's about the whole community.
"I actually completely agree with the decision to move the metric over, to looking at, you know, hospital capacity, current hospital usage, that sort of thing. I think it's a much more relevant metric in light of where we are in the pandemic," University Hospitals infectious disease specialist Dr. Amy Edwards said.
The numbers in Cuyahoga County are declining.
"Our case rate is now at about 70 per 100,000," Cuyahoga County Health Commissioner, Terry Allan, said on Wednesday.
While today's CDC announcement could be discouraging, Dr. Edwards says, we're moving in the right direction.
"I actually anticipate much of this fall, in the coming year, that we'll be mask-free for, I would guess, much of late spring and summer and early fall will probably be completely mask-free," Edwards said.
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