Multiple experts recently explained to Today.com when it might be a good idea to put on your mask when you’re inside.
Masks on or masks off?
Questions about what to do with your mask have risen since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear face masks outdoors or indoors in most cases, as I explained for the Deseret News.
- “If you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you can start doing the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a White House press briefing, per ABC News.
- However, the CDC said people should wear face masks indoors in specific settings that call for it, like health care settings and public transportation.
When should you wear a mask inside?
Experts told Today.com that there are specific cases to wear masks inside. For example, if your family isn’t fully vaccinated, you may want to keep the mask.
- “Because our family is not fully vaccinated, we’re still taking this precaution,” Dr. Anne Liu, an infectious disease physician at Stanford Health Care, told Today.com. “Because our kids still have to wear masks, we want to ... show them that we’re kind of in this together.”
Dr. Chris Beyrer, professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Today.com that he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to socialize without masks yet, either — especially if he doesn’t know the vaccination status of everyone.
- “Socializing without a mask, I think that’s too risky, given the fact that there are these variants of concern out there,” Beyrer told Today.com.
Indeed, Dr. Edgar Sanchez, infectious disease physician at Orlando Health, told Today.com that he would be cautious around strangers, too.
- “If I’m in a position where I know everybody around me is vaccinated, for example, like amongst family, I feel much more comfortable pulling that mask off, but if I’m in a room full of strangers, many of which probably aren’t vaccinated, then I still would be a little bit worried about taking off that mask,” Sanchez said.