The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance for schools opening to students in September, recommending that all people–regardless of age and vaccination status–wear masks while in school, CNN reports.
The new guidelines, issued Tuesday, recognizes the sudden jump in new cases of coronavirus which has been attributed to new, more contagious strains of the viruses and the unwillingness of some people to get vaccinated.
“It’s based on the fact that the Delta variant is clearly more transmissible than the prior ones,” an administration official said. “When you get information about risks and how to mitigate risks, there’s a public health obligation to let people know about it.”
While vaccinations help mitigate the impact of the virus if one should become infected, they do not eliminate the risk of infection or of transmitting the virus to others. About one-third of Americans, primarily Republicans and Trump supporters, have not received a single dose of a vaccine, leading to sharp increases in new cases in many states. Every state in the nation has seen an increase in new case trends in the last month, the first time that’s happened since the vaccines became widely available.