Under new guidance unveiled Friday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people in seven of Connecticut’s eight counties are no longer recommended to wear masks in public, indoors settings.

In the final county, Middlesex, people at high risk for COVID-19 are advised to consult a doctor on whether they should wear a mask.

The new CDC guidance arrived Friday as most of the country recovers from a devastating omicron variant surge. In Connecticut, the daily average of new cases has dropped from 10,000 at one point in January to 436 currently.

“We want to give people a break from things like masking when our levels are low, and then have the ability to reach for them again should things get worse in the future,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director, told reporters. “We need to be prepared, and we need to be ready for whatever comes next.”

Under the CDC’s previous criteria, five of Connecticut’s counties qualified for the “high” COVID-19 transmission category, while the other three were classified as having “substantial” transmission. That meant people in all eight counties were recommended to continue wearing masks in indoor, public places.

Whereas people in 94% of counties nationwide were recommended to wear masks under the CDC’s old guidance, those in only 37% of counties are now recommended to do so under the new guidance.

The new guidance has drawn criticism from some public health experts, who view it as overly permissive. Dr. Gerald E. Harmon, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement that he will continue to wear a mask in public and recommends that others do so as well.

“Even as some jurisdictions lift masking requirements, we must grapple with the fact that millions of people in the U.S. are immunocompromised, more susceptible to severe COVID outcomes, or still too young to be eligible for the vaccine,” Harmon said. “In light of those facts, I personally will continue to wear a mask in most indoor public settings, and I urge all Americans to consider doing the same.”

Dr. Ulysses Wu, chief epidemiologist at Hartford HealthCare, said last week he doesn’t think it’s time yet to lift mask requirements but that the time might come “soon, possibly in a week or two.”

Connecticut has not had a statewide mask mandate in nearly a year, and most towns and cities that implemented mask requirements this winter have since lifted them. New Haven, which has been one of the state’s strictest cities when it comes to pandemic control measures, announced Friday that masks will no longer be required as of March 7.