The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) and the Champaign Urbana Public Health Department (CUPHD) have fully adopting updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) masking recommendations to protect against COVID-19 and the Delta variant.
The CDC recommends that everyone, including fully vaccinated individuals, wear a mask in public indoor setting in areas with substantial and high transmission. CDC is also recommending universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to K-12 schools, regardless of vaccination status.
“While data continues to show the effectiveness of the three COVID-19 vaccines currently authorized in the U.S., including against the Delta variant, we are still seeing the virus rapidly spread among the unvaccinated,” said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. “Cases and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 both continue to increase, overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated, but the risk is greater for everyone if we do not stop the ongoing spread of the virus and the Delta variant. We know masking can help prevent transmission of COVID-19 and its variants. Until more people are vaccinated, we join CDC in recommending everyone, regardless of vaccination status, wear a mask indoors in areas of substantial and high transmissions, and in K-12 schools.”
According to CDC, data show the Delta variant is much more contagious. Delta spreads more than twice as easily from one person to another compared to other strains. According to CDC, the Delta variant is causing some vaccine breakthrough infections, but even so, most breakthrough infections are mild, and the vaccines are preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death.
The Delta variant is present in Champaign County and continues to increase locally and across the country. This particular variant appears to be much more transmissible and is impacting younger patients in a way previous variants have not. According to the CDC, a small percentage of vaccine breakthrough cases are expected as with any vaccine; however, fully vaccinated people are much less likely to be hospitalized or die than people with similar risk factors who are not vaccinated.
“While the COVID-19 vaccinations are highly effective, the Delta variant is very contagious so CUPHD is also aligning with the CDC recommendation of wearing a mask when in public indoor settings. Champaign County has seen a rise in cases and now has a positivity rate of 5 percent which puts us in an area of substantial transmission,” said Awais Vaid, Deputy Administrator and Epidemiologist at the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District.
Areas of substantial transmission are considered by CDC to be those with 50 to 99 cases per 100,000 people over a 7-day period. Areas of high transmission are considered to be those with more than 100 cases per 100,000 people over a 7-day period. The community level of transmission can be found here https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view.
