Ministry of Public Health recommends everyone to hide indoors | Local News

Due to a change in guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local coronavirus conditions, the Chicago Department of Public Health recommends that anyone over the age of two wear a mask in indoor public places, when ‘whether or not they have been vaccinated.

Masking remains optional outdoors.

On July 27, the CDC updated guidance that everyone should wear a mask in indoor public places with significant and high transmission of COVID-19 to help prevent the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant and more deadly from the novel coronavirus.

Chicago now has significant transmission of the coronavirus: more than 200 new cases of COVID-19 per day. The CRPD recommends that all businesses, employers and event organizers require universal masking in indoor public places.

“We are taking this step to prevent further spread of the highly contagious Delta variant and to protect public health,” CRPD Commissioner Dr Allison Arwady said in a statement. “It’s not forever, but there is a need to help reduce the risk for all Chicagoans right now.”

Governor JB Pritzker said 99% of COVID-19 deaths in Illinois are occurring in unvaccinated people.

On June 30, CDC officials released a study a cluster of COVID-19 infections in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a tourist spot on the tip of Cape Cod, in which 900 people contracted the coronavirus over the weekend of July 4. Of the 469 cases investigated by investigators, 346 occurred in fully vaccinated people, 80% of whom experienced symptoms.

Amid the spread of the delta variant, the CDC has found that breakthrough infections among vaccinated people are rare, but they do occur, and vaccinated people infected with the coronavirus can spread the disease. As the percentage of vaccinated people in a population increases, the percentage of infected people who are also vaccinated will, of necessity, also increase.

Alex Morse, General Manager of Provincetown said on social networks that only seven of the infections were severe enough to require hospitalization, adding that positivity in the city peaked at 15% on July 15 and was 4.8% on July 29.

Tens of thousands of people came to Provincetown on the weekend of July 4th. Massachusetts’ 12+ vaccination rate is 69%. Only about 900 people have contracted COVID-19 in the Provincetown cluster, Associated Press reports.

“The outbreak is contained and Provincetown is safe,” Morse said. “Indoor masking is useful during a peak, but not a long-term sustainable solution. Vaccination is. More and more companies here are requiring vaccination of employees and customers.”

Unvaccinated people who have not been infected with the coronavirus remain defenseless against COVID-19 and can transmit the disease to other unvaccinated people, including children, immunocompromised people for whom the vaccine may not provide full protection and unlucky vaccinees who contract chronic infections.

There is no cure for COVID-19, which can turn into “long COVID” or cause death. The CDC recommends that anyone 12 years of age and older receive a safe and effective vaccine against the disease as soon as possible.

Ask a press conference on July 27 Of the Provincetown cluster and associated breakthrough infections, Arwady said highly vaccinated networks generally protect against the spread of the coronavirus, but not 100%.

“We’ve continued here in Chicago to see these vaccines being very protective, but they’re not 100%,” she said.

At this press conference, before the CRPD recommended everyone, vaccinated or not, to resume wearing masks indoors in public, Arwady said she wears a mask indoors, to unless she knows that everyone is vaccinated.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, hundreds of bars and restaurants have joined together to restrict entry to those who can produce a recent three-day negative COVID-19 test or proof of vaccination. Some gay bars in Lakeview have started to do the same.

Arwady then admitted that some individual establishments in Chicago required proof of vaccination to enter, but said that had not been widely adopted here. She said the conversation about vaccine passports has grown and grown; as rates go up and down and winter looms, she assumes there is more appetite among businesses to check on people’s status.

“I think that’s another ‘watch this space’ in terms of how we continue to see the conversations evolve,” she said.