While vaccines continue to roll out and more sites are administering the shots, some people are looking to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for guidance on updated health and safety guidelines for those who are vaccinated.
“These are complex issues, and the science is rapidly evolving. The CDC is working to ensure that the communication we release on this guidance are clear and that the American public can act on it,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said.
[TRENDING: Where school staff, child care workers can get the vaccine| A guide for Buc-ee’s first-timers in Florida |Space hurricane seen swirling above Earth]
There is no set date on when the updated guidelines will be released, but Walensky said “soon” during a White House COVID-19 Response Briefing Friday. In the meantime, health officials said it’s important to keep following the current guidelines even after getting the vaccine.
“I know the idea of relaxing mask-wearing and getting back to everyday activities is appealing, but we are not there yet. We have seen this movie before. When prevention measures like mask mandates are rolled back, cases go up,” Walensky said.
The latest data from the Florida Department of Health shows more than 3.3 million people have been vaccinated so far in the state. That only accounts for a little over 15% of the population. Health officials say there aren’t enough people vaccinated for herd immunity.
Some local counties are responding to the big question: “Will they roll back mask mandates?” Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings addressed the question Thursday during a press conference.
“At this point, I say no. Not until we have substantially more people who are vaccinated within our community,” said Demings. “Until we get to at least 50% or so of our county population inoculated with the vaccine, we’re going to continue to leave our mask mandate in place.”
[RELATED: Here’s when Orange County could lift its coronavirus mask mandate]
News 6 reached out to our local counties to get their response on mask mandates.
A representative of Osceola County said they have no plans to relax their mask mandate anytime soon.
While counties like Marion, Brevard and Volusia don’t have a county-wide mask mandate, some of their cities and municipalities still have one in place.
A Volusia County spokesperson said in a statement:
“Here in Volusia County, while some cities have mask mandates, Volusia County Government never instituted one. We never had a mask mandate, and we do not plan to start one. We only encourage businesses to follow and encourage their patrons to follow CDC recommendations. In-house we asked our employees to wear masks whenever dealing with the public and whenever they could not practice CDC recommendations around co-workers, etc.”
Lake and Sumter Counties have not issued a mask mandate.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said with the current daily trends of new cases of the virus in the U.S., people should be vigilant.
“That plateau is about 60,000 to 70,000 cases in a day. When you have that much viral activity in a plateau, it almost invariably means that you are at risk for another spike,” Fauci said.
Use the form below to sign up for the ClickOrlando.com 4pm Trending newsletter, sent every weekday.