St. Louis City, County recommend masks for vaccinated people as Delta variant spreads
St. Louis City and County health departments recommended Thursday that vaccinated residents resume wearing masks indoors when around people whose vaccination status is unknown because of the emergence of a highly transmissible variant of the COVID-19 virus.
St. Louis metropolitan region health officials had relaxed face covering measures as vaccination rates increased. They revised that guidance as the Delta variant continued to spread rapidly in areas of Missouri where vaccination rates are low and hospitalizations on the rise.
Unvaccinated people are at a higher risk of severe complications, hospitalization and death from COVID-19.
While COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective even against the Delta variant, vaccinated people can still catch the virus. They may unknowingly spread it to unvaccinated people.
“As we monitor the Delta variant, we are seeing that it’s spreading fast, and data shows it is more infectious and impacting younger segments of the population,” said Dr. Fredrick Echols, acting director of the City of St. Louis Department of Health, in a news release.
Dr. Faisal Khan, acting director of the St. Louis County Department of Public Health, said the “pandemic is not over.”
“The virus and its variants present a real and imminent danger to the health of people in the St. Louis region. We must encourage vaccination and continued precautions,” Khan said in the news release.
The health officials urged people to get vaccinated as quickly as possible to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Information about where to find a vaccine is available at vaccines.gov, on the county’s Vaccination Events website and on the city’s COVID-19 Vaccine information page.
Missouri state officials asked the federal government for help this week in responding to the Delta variant’s spread in areas with low vaccination rates, The Kansas City Star reported. For the first time since February, the state again began reporting more than 1,000 daily cases and many counties had vaccinated less than 25% of residents.
A return to masks?
The guidance in the St. Louis region was at odds with recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, but agreed with an opinion from the World Health Organization.
“If you are vaccinated, you are safe from the variants that are circulating here in the United States,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday on NBC’s “Today” show.
But the WHO said Friday fully vaccinated people should still wear face masks whenever possible to prevent spreading the disease.
Walensky said the CDC would leave it up to states to decide whether masks are recommended indoors for vaccinated people. Masks are still required on public transit and in airports.
Health officials in urban areas are making their own decisions based on local transmission rates.
While St. Louis recommended masks as Delta spreads in areas of southeastern Missouri, Chicago’s top public health expert said the city would follow CDC guidance. Slightly less than half of Chicagoans were fully vaccinated as of Thursday, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Los Angeles County, meantime, advised indoor masking for vaccinated people earlier this week.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 4:04 PM.
