WASHINGTON — Desperate to keep the coronavirus pandemic from spoiling a third consecutive summer, federal public health officials said Wednesday that masking should return in parts of the country with rapidly rising rates of infection. But although cases have been rising for several weeks, local and state leaders have thus far shown little willingness to reimpose mask mandates, even in Democratic municipalities and states.
“We urge local leaders to encourage the use of prevention strategies like masking in public indoor settings and increasing access to testing and to treatment,” the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, said at a briefing of the White House