The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday issued new guidelines that marked the beginning of the end of indoor mask use and social distancing for vaccinated people in America. Those who are two weeks past their final COVID-19 shot can now skip masks when inside virtually anywhere, and also drop their masks outdoors in large crowds, a context in which the CDC continued to recommend mask use as of two weeks ago.
But while experts canvassed by The Daily Beast broadly agreed with easing federal guidance, they warned the blanket nationwide approach failed to account for America’s vast problems with vaccine hesitancy and pandemic truthers.
Welcome to Rabbit Hole, where we dive deep on the biggest story. It’s for Beast Inside members only. Join up today.
ADVERTISEMENT
“We have all longed for this moment, when we can get back to some sense of normalcy,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House press briefing. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” she added.
The updated guidance reflects the success of a national inoculation program that has seen some 46 percent of the U.S. population receive at least one dose of the COVID vaccine—154 million people—and 117 million get both. COVID-related deaths are at their lowest pace since April 2020, and the test positivity rate for COVID is lower than it has been since the start of the pandemic, according to the Associated Press. While the vaccination rate has recently dropped off, the new authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for kids 12 to 15 was expected to boost those numbers once again, if only briefly.
Easing mask restrictions will now make it easier for schools, workplaces, and businesses to reopen, and is being framed by some public-health experts as an incentive for holdouts to get their shots.
Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician and public health expert in New York City, believes the new guidelines generally make sense, “as long as we’re not seeing a sudden surge in local community spread.” Offices and schools shouldn’t be an issue, although Redlener thinks it’s still too risky to go maskless in crowded bars, which are “just too unpredictable about keeping people apart.”
There are two potential problems now lurking in the wings, he argued.
“One, we don't actually know for sure what's going to happen in the wintertime, when people are going to be indoors more, which is why we need to get as many people vaccinated as possible now,” he told The Daily Beast. “The second thing that keeps me up at night are the apocalyptic disasters in India, Nepal, South America—potential breeding grounds for new variants that could get to the U.S. and disrupt the progress that we’re making. That could really be a threat to every country on the planet.”
A spokesperson for the CDC told The Daily Beast the agency was confident in vaccines warding off any variants spreading domestically, while side-stepping the issue of holdout anti-vaxxers.
“You may not know if someone around you is vaccinated or not, which is why we are encouraging everyone to get vaccinated—because we know the benefits: it protects you, it protects others, and it lets us begin to return to normal,” the spokesperson said.
Right now, it is true that all of the COVID variants scientists have identified appear to be at least mostly controlled by existing vaccines. But while Redlener is obviously hopeful that new vaccine-resistant variants will not emerge, we will “inevitably” have to respond to new strains of COVID over the next four to six months requiring booster shots to stay safely protected, he said.
It’s worth noting that the CDC still recommends that fully vaccinated people wear face coverings in hospitals, doctors’ offices, and nursing homes, as well as prisons, jails, and homeless shelters. Anyone who travels on buses, planes, or trains should also mask up, according to the new guidance. And over the next several months, the vaccine is expected to be approved for children 9-12, 6-9, and under 6. Until then, it is important to take steps to keep kids virus-free, for their own benefit and also to prevent them from spreading it to others, experts said.
Other experts pointed the finger at the politicization of the CDC under the Trump administration as a continuing stumbling block in the fight against COVID-19. The agency emerged from the last four years “in a heap of trouble,” after regular bashings by a science-denying White House, argued Lawrence Gostin, a public health law professor at Georgetown University. And now that the president isn’t pressuring the CDC to open up sooner, the general public is.
“I think they’ve gone all the way from, ‘Let's be over-cautious,’ to, ‘Let's go completely back to normal,’” Gostin told The Daily Beast. “I think the CDC is losing credibility, because it’s pivoting from one extreme to another. It is under constant criticism, and I think there's a perception that people are just going to make their own decisions.”
Among other recent statements that might call the new guidance into question, CDC Director Walensky herself said as recently as Tuesday that she would not send her 16-year-old to camp because of the pandemic.
Gostin thinks it makes “perfect sense” for a vaccinated person to go mask-free outdoors, and to come within six feet of others. Yet, ditching masks indoors is simply asking for trouble, he said. For example, attending crowded fitness classes without a mask could place a lot of people at risk, he argued. That’s because there’s no way to know if the person next to you is fully vaccinated or not.
“There’s no proof-of-vaccination system, and the Biden administration said affirmatively that it will never get involved in one,” Gostin continued. “We're not anywhere close to community protection. But these [new guidelines] don’t only apply in communities with high rates of vaccination, they apply in all communities—even those with low rates of vaccination. If you end up with a lot of people crowded indoors, where there’s no way to know who is vaccinated and who isn’t. Complicating matters further, the sale of counterfeit vaccination cards has begun to crop up in recent months.”
“Somebody not wearing a mask is not proof of vaccination,” he added.
Masks have, of course, been a lightning rod in the United States since the early days of the pandemic. And there’s no doubt in Gostin’s mind that the new CDC recommendations will lead to friction. Significant variations in mask mandates between different local jurisdictions remain, and could change from town to town or even store to store.
“You’re likely to have people arguing with one another, ‘Why don’t you have your mask on?’” he said. “And then, ‘Why do you have your mask on?’”
Given declines in cases, along with decent vaccination rates and proof that we can halt transmission of the virus through people getting the vaccine, Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine scientist and professor at Baylor University, said he supports the CDC’s decision. Still, like the others, his optimism remains tempered by reality.
The main problem Hotez sees is the very low vaccination coverage seen in certain parts of the country, such as the Deep South, he told The Daily Beast. In Alabama, for instance, only 41 percent of the population has received at least one dose as of early this month. This puts the U.S. at risk for a fifth wave of infections this summer, cautioned Hotez.
The feds have suggested new mask-free guidance for vaccinated people might be an incentive for the vaccine-resistant to get their shots. “The rule is now simple: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do,” President Biden tweeted Thursday. “The choice is yours.”
Still, Hotez isn’t counting on it, arguing, “It won’t affect the defiance coming from conservative groups.”
In the end, following the science remains the only real way forward.
“I feel badly for the CDC because they’re trying to do the right thing,” said Gostin. “But no matter what they do, they’re being criticized, and as a result they’re going from the sublime to the ridiculous or the ridiculous to the sublime—I don't know. Yesterday, there were all kinds of restrictions on vaccinated people, and today it’s a green light to go back to normal, and there’s no change in the epidemiology.”
