On May 18, 2021, many questions were asked of the NH COVID team during the press conference regarding the CDC’s announcement last Thursday informing vaccinated individuals no longer needing to wear masks when indoors or outdoors.
Here are a few key takeaways:
- A new document will be released to go in conjunction with the Universal Best Practices guide that will be recommending continued mask use and social distancing indoors despite your vaccination status. Dr. Chan commented for at least the next several weeks we need to continue the use of all of the mitigation measures in addition to vaccinations to get the COVID numbers down. He said this will work better if done at a population level.
You can view Dr. Chan's recommendations on WMUR.com:
State epidemiologist recommends people continuing to wear masks indoors - We are protecting not just ourselves but we need to remember there will always be people who cannot be vaccinated based on their age, their medical status, or other factors. There are some individuals that may not get full immunity from a vaccination as well.
- Dr. Chan summarized that because of the need for many to still get vaccinated or finish their vaccination we need to deviate from the CDC recommendations at this time.
- Governor Sununu commented we are no longer in a crisis with COVID-19 but we are still in an emergency situation.
So what does this mean for us and our members?
NHADA agrees that the time to toss the masks is not now. No matter what the vaccination status is of your employees, customers, volunteers, or vendors, masks should continue to be worn as part of the complete mitigation measures in the fight against COVID-19.
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