more covid cases predicted to rise in coming weeks because of new ba2 variant i absolutely understand the urge and people wanting to get back to that 2019 style of living but one big concern that a lot of colleagues and i have talked about was that we did it too quickly dr alok patel a physician at stanford childrens health and abc news contributor we should be having a conversation about when the right time is for masks to come off and i think members of the immunocompromised community should have a voice in that conversation dr david dowdy an epidemiologist at the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health although states and localities are responsible for setting their own public health guidelines many follow the cdcs lead in what requirements should be set to keep the public safe and covid19 under control if she gets covid19 it could kill her cummings told abc news the cdc pointed abc news to some of the recent disability work it has done including funding to embed disability specialists in 28 state territorial and local health department across the us a cdc covid19 toolkit for people with disabilities which includes guidance and tools to help highrisk people make informed decisions about protecting their health and an online central repository of covid19 resources for health departments and organizations if there were more vaccinated kids more kids wearing masks it would be different but were just not there more 2 years into pandemic americans still feeling deadly impact of covid19 the cdc as a federal agency does not have the authority to issue federal mandates for masking requirements or other mitigation measures outside a federal context such as in an airport or public transportation setting wang yingxinhua news agency via getty images further they said that public health officials including schools should take into account all community members when considering whether to strengthen or add layered prevention strategies not only for effective disease control but also to protect those persons at greatest risk for severe illness or death dr walensky and cdc commit to moving forward together with people in the disability community with regular engagements between senior leadership and disability groups the representatives said in a letter dated apr 7 that was shared with abc news when protections that are key to lowering transmission such as universal masking are removed too soon after a peak and before low transmission is demonstrably sustained new variants emerge causing cases to spike and putting the lives of all americans particularly disabled chronically ill immunocompromised people of color and older people at greater risk once again the organizations wrote despite continuously speaking out about her concerns over the potential impact of the virus on her daughters health cummings has been struck by what she perceives as lack of caring from the public when asked by abc news to identify some of the work the biden administration has done to protect the lives of