CDC Says Lexington, Most Midlands Counties Should Keep Masking Indoors

The big national headline coming out of the latest change in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 guidance is that 70% of people in the United States live in places where they no longer need to mask inside public places.

But that doesn’t apply to Lexington County, where the CDC says coronavirus is still putting a considerable strain on the community.

The latest guidelines are based on the CDC’s new COVID-19 Community Levels, “a measure of the impact of COVID-19 illness on health and healthcare systems.”

The CDC’s website explains that it combines three metrics to determine a county’s community level — new COVID-19 admissions per 100,000 people in the past seven days, the percent of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID-19 patients, and total new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people in the past seven days — classifying the COVID strain on local health systems as Low, Medium or High.

“This is really a phenomenal data source that allows us to on a daily basis assess how many new hospitalizations that have been in hospitals for people with confirmed COVID-19 and the percent hospital capacity, and hospital beds [being] used by people with COVID-19,” Dr. Greta Massetti, the CDC’s branch chief for Field Epidemiology and Prevention, said in a Friday teleconference about the new, community-level-informed guidelines.

Like almost all of the Midlands, Lexington County currently has a High COVID-19 Community Level, which leads the CDC to recommend that people here:

• Wear a mask indoors in public
• Stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccines
• Get tested if you have symptoms

The CDC also notes that additional precautions may be necessary for individuals who are at high risk for severe illness.

In counties with Low and Medium community levels — roughly half of the 3,007 U.S. counties, accounting for about 70% of the nation’s population — residents are no longer advised to where masks when indoors in public, though people at high risk for severe illness in Medium-designated counties are encouraged to talk with healthcare providers about whether they need to take precautions including wearing a mask.

Elsewhere in the Midlands, Richland, Newberry, Saluda, Aiken, Kershaw, Chester, Edgefield, Fairfield, Lancaster and York counties have a High community level. Barnwell is the lone Midlands county (as listed by sc.gov) with a Medium community level. 

Only five of South Carolina’s 46 counties (Orangeburg, Bamberg, Allendale, Jasper and Beaufort) have a Low community level.