facemasks

(Runtime 4:26)The early pandemic was chaos. Masks and other PPE were scarce. Cindi Rang and her daughter Brianna Motzkus own a quilting shop in Ephrata.…

The Richland School Board Thursday evening voted to allow children to go back in-person and to follow the Governor’s Mask Mandate on a vote of 4 to 1.This…

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee says the state is racing to expand access to testing, masks and vaccines, but has no immediate plans to impose new rollbacks, mandates or restrictions in the face of an unprecedented wave of new COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant.

Washingtonians who are fully vaccinated should wear masks in public indoor settings, Gov. Jay Inslee said on Wednesday. Fully vaccinated people who live with young children or someone who is vulnerable to sickness should consider masking indoors even in counties with lower transmission. This is guidance and not a legal requirement.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little on Friday issued an executive order repealing a mask mandate prohibition put in place while he was out of the state by the lieutenant governor, describing her actions as a tyrannical abuse of power and an “irresponsible, self-serving political stunt.”

While acting as governor in Gov. Brad Little’s absence on Thursday, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin issued an executive order prohibiting mask mandates issued by the state or its “political subdivisions,” including public schools, counties, cities and public health districts. It also extends to state boards, commissions, departments and divisions.

As more states shed their universal mask mandates for those who are vaccinated, many Americans are weighing how much faith to put in the new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and in the integrity of their unvaccinated peers, who are supposed to follow the rules and keep wearing masks.

The shift in guidance was a dramatic reversal from the country's top public health agency, which has been criticized for being too conservative (and convoluted) in its earlier guidelines for those who are vaccinated. The latest changes have left a lot of people with a lot of questions, which NPR's science, health and education reporters are here to answer.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that fully vaccinated adults can safely resume activities indoors or outdoors without masks or distancing, in gatherings large or small. The announcement marks a major milestone in the effort to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic in the United States.

A study released this month in the Journal of Hospital Medicine, led by researchers from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, found that across 44 children's hospitals, the number of pediatric patients hospitalized for respiratory illnesses is down 62%. Deaths have dropped dramatically too, compared with the last 10 years: The number of flu deaths among children is usually between 100 and 200 per year, but so far only one child has died from the disease in the U.S. during the 2020-2021 flu season.