In the middle of January, the US was reporting more than 900,000 new cases of COVID 19 every day. The daily case count now averages less than 50,000.

Here in Maryland, two months ago the testing positivity rate was nearly 27%. Now, it stands at less than 2%. Maryland and the District of Columbia have the nation’s lowest daily case rate.

The vaccination rate is creeping up very, very slowly. More than a year into vaccine availability, only about 65% of Americans are fully vaccinated, well behind dozens of other countries.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revised its guidelines for masking in public spaces, changing the metrics it emphasizes as they determine what is best practice at this stage of the pandemic. Writing in the Washington Post, Dr. Leana Wen says, “The CDC finally got masking right.”

Dr. Wen is a former Baltimore City health commissioner and Tom's guest today for another edition of the Midday Healthwatch. She is an emergency physician. She teaches at the George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. She’s a columnist for The Washington Post, a medical analyst for CNN, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.

Dr. Leana Wen joins us on Zoom…

And we welcome your questions and comments…

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