The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said some 93 per cent of the American population lives in locations where Covid-19 levels are low enough that people do not need to wear masks indoors.

The CDC dramatically eased its guidelines for when Americans should wear masks indoors, saying they could drop them in counties experiencing what it described as low or medium Covid-19 levels.

The agency said on Thursday that 85.4pc of counties now rank as low or medium risk and 92.9pc of the population lives in those counties.

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