(CNN) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is strongly encouraging vaccinated people to wear masks indoors but stopping short of reissuing a mask mandate, he said in a news conference Monday, spurning recommendations from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We want to strongly recommend that people wear masks in indoor settings even if you’re vaccinated,” de Blasio said. “If you don’t know the people around, if you’re not sure if they’re vaccinated or not, or if you know some are unvaccinated, it’s absolutely crucial to wear a mask even if you are vaccinated.” He did not require them, however.
Already, New York City requires vaccinated people to wear masks on public transit, in hospitals and in schools.
Last week, the CDC issued new guidance that fully vaccinated people should wear masks indoors when in areas of “substantial” or “high” Covid-19 transmission, metrics based on case rates and positivity rates in a county. All five boroughs in NYC are in areas of “substantial” or “high” transmission.
De Blasio’s decision not to reissue a mask mandate reflects the waning power of the CDC’s guidance at this point in the pandemic.
The CDC’s new mask guidance was based on an outbreak of the Delta variant among mostly vaccinated people in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in which five people were hospitalized and no one died. The vaccines, though not perfect, provide substantial protection against severe Covid-19 illness and death.
In recent weeks, the mayor has emphasized the importance of vaccinating as many people as possible and downplayed the use of masks, saying vaccines are “the whole ball game.”
“Masks can be helpful, we are going to delineate to New Yorkers the best way to use masks, but they don’t change the basic reality. Vaccination does,” he told CNN’s Poppy Harlow on Friday.
The city has offered both carrots and sticks to encourage vaccinations. Any resident who gets a first dose of the vaccine at a city-run vaccination site will get $100. At the same time, all unvaccinated city employees will be required to start weekly testing on September 13.
The mayor also announced Monday that every new employee for the city of New York will be required to prove they are vaccinated before they can begin work.
The-CNN-Wire
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