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The percentage of Americans who should be wearing a mask indoors in public spaces or considering the measure is increasing as the country heads into the holiday weekend.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 33% of Americans should be masking while indoors and an additional 36% should be considering the measure based on their risk for severe COVID-19 as of Thursday.
The group of Americans who should be masking grew significantly over the past week – jumping from 22% of the population as of last Thursday.
Coronavirus cases in the U.S. are increasing slightly while hospitalization rates are also up. The country is currently averaging nearly 110,000 new cases each day, which is about 10,000 more infections than the average a week prior. The majority of states are seeing increasing COVID-19 infections, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The development comes after two new omicron subvariants that are highly transmissible took over as the dominant strains circulating in the U.S. Experts have predicted that the subvariants – BA.4 and BA.5 – could lead to a small increase in cases or, at the very least, an extended plateau of the latest coronavirus wave.
The two variants went from making up 1% of new cases at the start of May to 52% of infections last week.
The constantly changing field of coronavirus variants prompted the Food and Drug Administration this week to recommend vaccine developers update their booster shots to target the omicron subvariants with the hopes of using the new shots in the fall. The shots used for primary vaccination, however, will remain the same.
“As we expect this coming year to be a transitional period when this modified booster vaccine may be introduced, we have not advised manufacturers to change the vaccine for primary vaccination, since a primary series with the FDA-authorized and approved COVID-19 vaccines provides a base of protection against serious outcomes of COVID-19 caused by circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2,” the FDA said in a press release.