Does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend masking for physicians and other health care professionals to prevent the spread of COVID-19?

The answer is yes. But if physician calls to the Texas Medical Association and a notification posted on CDC’s own website are any indication, new guidelines issued by CDC have generated some confusion on the subject.

The agency recently issued community-level guidelines for COVID-19 to help the public understand if their county has a low, medium, or high level of risk for the disease. These guidelines include a color-coded map and chart designed to let people know how common COVID-19 cases are in their county and how they should respond. People in counties with high risk are urged to wear a mask while people in medium- or low-risk counties are not.

But these community guidelines are not meant for physicians and other health care professionals to follow in a clinical environment, CDC says on its website.

“Health care settings should continue to use community transmission rates and continue to follow CDC’s infection prevention and control recommendations,” CDC said in a notification posted among its various COVID guidelines.

Those guidelines for health professionals say masking is “recommended for everyone in a health care setting.”

CDC last updated its guidance for physicians and health care workers Feb. 2 and plans to refine the guidance further in response to changing conditions, the agency’s website says.