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By Jeremy Duda | Arizona Mirror
State health officials will update its guidance to follow new recommendations from the CDC urging people to wear masks in schools and for everyone, including those who have been vaccinated against COVID-19, to wear masks in enclosed public spaces — though they remain strictly voluntary due to new state laws prohibiting mandates.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued the new recommendations Tuesday amid rising COVID case numbers, which public health officials blame primarily on the unvaccinated. Those guidelines recommend that all students, teachers, staff and others in K-12 schools wear masks. All people, regardless of vaccination status, are urged to wear face coverings in public spaces.
Those recommendations apply to anyone in a county with substantial or high transmission of the novel coronavirus. Of Arizona’s 15 counties, only Cochise and Yuma don’t meet that threshold, and Arizona Department of Health Services Director Cara Christ said “it’s just going to be a matter of time” before those counties are at that point.
