The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recognize much of Central New York as high risk for COVID-19 transmission.

That means masks are once again being recommended. On Friday, health officials in Onondaga County reported over 500 new cases.

The CDC’s updated COVID-19 community levels map shows Onondaga, Oswego and Cayuga counties as high risk. The recommendations are based on hospitalizations, hospital capacity and new COVID-19 cases.

Despite the new information, the state and local governments are still not requiring masks in most indoor areas.

“I think, certainly, here in Onondaga County, we’re dealing with higher rates than other counties in New York state," said Dr. Philip Falcone, chief medical officer at St. Joseph’s Health. "There’s probably a variety of reasons for that, but I do feel it still makes sense for each person to look at their own situation and decide if they want to mask, particularly in public places.”

The Onondaga County executive has said the recent spike in cases had to do with the new BA.2 variant, which is now the predominant strain in the county.

He also said the metric that would trigger any new COVID-19 protocols is hospitalization rates. Though no one has specified exactly what that metric is, last week, the deputy county executive said the county was nowhere near it.

“Yes, that is a very important metric, because if that were to go up significantly, then we again would need to look at alternative options to reduce that risk," Falcone said. "But again, right now, we’re seeing relatively stable rates of transmission. They’re certainly not as high as they were in the past.”

Falcone said masking is coming down to personal decision-making, as now “we’re in a safe place” with multiple tools to tackle COVID. It's a sediment echoed by county officials.

“There are more avenues now to protect yourself. Certainly, vaccination status is one, and again, the medications available. If someone were to get sick, we have ways of treating them that maybe we didn’t have a year ago," Falcone said. "And with the vaccinations that we have at hand and the boosters, we have developed at least a reasonable protection level for a majority of the population, so that even if they were to contract the disease, they might end up not being in a hospital.”

In New York, masks are still required in some places like health care facilities, nursing homes and others.