States, cities and school districts are assessing Friday s guidance to determine whether it s safe to stop mask-wearing long after others threw out such mandates and many Americans ignored them.
Most Americans are safe without wearing a mask in indoor settings, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday as it issued new mask metrics.
The CDC eased mask recommendations for the vast majority of the country Friday under a new framework to monitor the coronavirus that immediately affects about 70% of Americans a process that state and local officials had already begun amid demands for a return to normalcy.
As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to decline across the U.S., all states but one Hawaii have dropped their mask mandates or have announced plans to do so in coming weeks.