With the new COVID-19 variant BA.5 causing an uptick in cases around the United States, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci is pushing for the country to mask up indoors.
Fauci told CNN’s “New Day” that people “should wear a mask in a congregate indoor setting.”
“[A]s the CDC makes it very clear, depending upon the density of infection and the dynamics of infection in the place where you live, and you see if you look at the map where just a couple of months ago it was a lot of green and some yellow. Now, we’re seeing a fair amount of orange, which means you really should, in an indoor setting — a congregate setting — be wearing masks,” Fauci advised. “It’s just the appropriate thing to do to defend — to protect yourself and your family and those around you because you could get infected and inadvertently, without any symptoms, transmit it to someone perhaps in your own household who is vulnerable — either an elderly person or someone with immune compromise.”
“And that’s the reason why when you’re in an area where the infection dynamic is high, you should wear a mask in a congregate indoor setting,” he added.
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