The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a relaxed guidance for masks on Friday. This allowed most people to remove all face covers as long Covid-19 hospitalizations within their community remain low.

According to the new CDC guidance people should wear masks indoors, even in public spaces.,Schools are included if there is a high level of virus spread in the community that can overwhelm local hospitals. According to CDC data, more than 70% Americans reside in areas where there is no severe risk from Covid. This means that they don’t have to wear masks inside public spaces, although they may choose to do so if necessary.

The CDC is now focusing on the effect of severe illness on hospitals, a major shift from its previous focus on Covid infections when issuing health guidance.

“The overall risk of serious disease has dropped with widespread immunity,” Dr. Rochelle Wilensky of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told journalists during Friday’s conference call. The new approach to prevention focuses on protecting high-risk individuals from severe illnesses and helping hospitals and healthcare providers avoid being overwhelmed.

Federal law still requires that people wear masks when traveling by planes, trains and buses.

California and New York removed masks from indoor public areas earlier this month due to falling infections. Questions were raised about whether the CDC will also remove its mandates.

When the deadly delta virus was sweeping the U.S. in July 2021 the CDC changed its recommendations for masks.

While the guidelines from summer were still valid, the more contagious Omicron variant overtook delta in December. It set off the biggest outbreak of infectious disease since the start of the pandemic. Scientists and health professionals later discovered that the omicron variant generally does not make people sicker than delta. Hospitalizations rose at an unimaginable rate, but deaths and illnesses did not increase.

According to Johns Hopkins University data, the U.S. reports an average 75,000 cases per day on a seven-day basis. This is 91% less than the record pandemic of over 800,000.

The number of hospitalizations has also dropped sharply to approximately 57,500 people with Covid in America as of Thursday, from an all-time high of over 159,000 Jan. 20. This is based on seven days of average data from the Health and Human Services Department. According to Hopkins data, the daily death rate from Covid reached nearly 11,000 per day on February 1, at an average of over 2,600 per person. It has fallen since then to approximately 1,740.