The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday released new guidelines for summer camps, updating its guidance to say that vaccinated adolescents do not need to wear masks.
The new guidelines also say that younger, unvaccinated campers do not need to wear masks in most outdoor settings, but said they should still wear masks when in close contact with others or in crowds outdoors, or at all times when indoors.
The previous guidance from the CDC recommended that all children should wear masks, regardless of vaccination status, except for certain activities, including eating and swimming.
“In general, people don’t need to wear masks outdoors. That includes unvaccinated and fully vaccinated people due to the really low risk of transmission outside,” Erin Sauber-Schatz, who leads the CDC’s task force on Community Interventions and Critical Populations Task Force, told NBC News. But, she continued, “even though outdoors is really safe, there are still key times when if you’re not fully vaccinated, you should be wearing a mask.”
Fully vaccinated adolescents should still wear masks at workplaces and businesses that require masks, the CDC said, while also urging camp programs to “be supportive of campers or staff who choose to wear a mask.”
For indoor activites, the CDC “strongly encourages” masks for anyone older than 2 who is not vaccinated.
As of Thursday, over 5.6 million Americans ages 12-18 have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 shot, with over 2.1 million fully vaccinated, according to data compiled by the CDC. About 2.5 million out of the approximately 17 million children in the 12-15 age group have had one dose of the vaccine, according to Erin Sauber-Schatz, the head of the CDC’s Community Interventions and Critical Populations Task Force, which wrote the guidance.
Nearly half of the total U.S. population has received at least one COVID-19 shot, with 40% of the U.S. population fully vaccianted, per the CDC.
But, the CDC said it recognizes that it may be impossible for some camp organizers to verify the vaccination status for all its campers, and noted that some states and localities may choose to simply abide by the previous guidelines requiring masks for all.
“The staff is going to have to be the role model. I tell my camp directors, just because your staff can remove masks doesn’t mean they should,” Tracey Gaslin, executive director of the Association of Camp Nursing, told The Washington Post. “Kids at a camp are going to follow the leader and do what the counselor does.”
Still, Gaslin acknowledged to the Post the difficulty of adhering to the changing guidances.
“There’s only so much flexibility everyone has,” she said. “We know we’re headed back toward things being closer to normal, but at the same time, camps are at that crux of, okay, we have our policy set in March, and now all these changes are coming.”
This is a developing story. Check back later for further updates.
