Coronavirus Watch: Mask mandates associated with drop in deaths, CDC finds

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report released Friday found more evidence supporting the effectiveness of mask mandates, which "serves as a warning" about the dangers of lifting mask mandates prematurely, said CDC Director Rochelle Walensky. 

According to the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report: 

• Mandating masks was associated with a drop in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of the order taking effect.
• Allowing restaurants to reopen for inside or outside dining was associated with an increase in daily case growth rates within 41 to 100 days after lifting a ban and an increase in daily death growth rates 61 to 100 days after implementation.

It's Friday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here's more news you need to know:

• Gov. Andrew Cuomo was facing fresh criticism after reports from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal detailed how his administration successfully pressured New York's health department to strip the full COVID-19 death count attributed to nursing homes from a state report released last July. The report indicated more than 6,200 nursing home residents had died, instead of nearly 10,000 who were residents of the homes and died either there or at a hospital.
• Senators were reconvening Friday to debate President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package after one Republican added hours to the process by asking that every word of the 628-page bill be read aloud. The Senate's 20 hours of debate on the bill could last through Sunday, and a final vote may not happen until early next week.
• Hiring rebounded sharply in February after a two-month slump with employers adding 379,000 jobs, the Labor department said Friday.
• The variant that first appeared in the United Kingdom has now been spotted in almost the entire country, CDC data reported Thursday show. Only Montana, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Vermont have not reported a case.
• Anyone over the age of 18 can get a COVID-19 vaccine in Arizona's Gila County, making it one of the first areas in the country vaccinating the general population.
• The San Diego Zoo has vaccinated nine great apes for the coronavirus after a troop of gorillas in its Safari Park became infected, officials said Thursday.

Today's numbers: The U.S. has reported more than 28.8 million COVID-19 cases and 520,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Worldwide, there have been more than 115.7 million cases and more than 2.5 million deaths. In the U.S., more than 16% of people have received at least one vaccine shot, and more than 8% of people have received both doses, according to the CDC.

See the numbers in your area here, check out where cases are rising here, and see how many vaccines your state has received here.

– Grace Hauck, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck