This IS the first Biden admin snafu ….
The suggestion that vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks outside flew all over the media….
The result of the advice has Been confusion …
Somebody messed up on this one….
(He’s something on the internal CDC messed up turn around)
The CDC seems to have been whipsawed by some saying they were overly cautious , media reports that no one was going back to work, and a President that is riding high in the polls and pushing vaccines…
The result is a one size fits all call that actually is more confusing…
And could turn out to be counterproductive and BIG problem for store and business owners….
For Americans whose bare faces had scarcely been seen in public for a year, there were suddenly options. Would they leave the mask behind for a jog? What about the coffee shop? What about the neighbor’s house? The office?
A sudden loosening this week of federal health guidance on masks has handed Americans a new calculation to make. And it isn’t just one calculation, but a maze of many. As people walked through their days, hour by hour, errand by errand, some wondered at every new doorway: Mask or no mask?
In interviews this weekend with dozens of residents from Los Angeles to Atlanta, people said they were mostly encouraged by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s finding that masks were no longer needed for fully vaccinated people in most indoor and outdoor situations.
But the details, many said, were perplexing, and had stirred new questions about science, but also about trust, social norms and even politics. How can one be certain that people no longer wearing masks have actually gotten a vaccine? What will the neighbors think if you take yours off? (And what will they think if you don’t?) And what if, some asked, you just feel more comfortable in a mask?…
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“At first, as a citizen, I was like, ‘Wow, these are so great, I haven’t been out to eat in a year,’” Angela Garbacz, 34, a pastry shop owner in Lincoln, Neb., said of the new recommendations, which have begun filtering out to states and cities and stores. “But as a private business owner, it has been like panic and, ‘What do we do?’ Are people just going to think they can come in without masks? Do I get rid of my mask requirement? It’s just so much uncertainty with the one thing that’s helped us feel safe in a really scary time.”
Masking, a rare practice in the United States just 14 months ago, has become a normal part of American life. Some people questioned the C.D.C.’s abrupt shift in guidance — noting that the agency’s position on masks has shifted before — and wondered aloud whether the latest turn was really safe.
Gerry Corn, 56, who was picking up food to-go on Friday night in Los Angeles, said he had concerns about how long vaccine protection would last. “I’m thinking that until we really know more about it from empirical scientific evidence, that we should keep the mask in place, especially in public,” he said….
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His experience highlights the chaos and confusion unleashed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Thursday pronouncement that fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks in most cases.
While the relaxed guidelines had some ripping the cloth from their faces and vowing to party like it’s 2019, many around the country — particularly front-line workers and parents of small children — worried for their health, and wondered whether and how to implement the new guidance, at odds with the local regulations in some states….
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The CDC’s surprise announcement also roiled parents of young children, who can’t yet get vaccinated.
“It’s hard to know that you can trust if people are vaccinated or if they just don’t want to wear a mask. It’s like a free pass to stop being considerate of the vulnerable populations who can’t get vaccinated,” said Kelsey Gorder, 30, a mother in San Francisco….
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“People are tired of this,” he said. “It’s going to be nuts.”…
jamesb says
Check the link in this post on the misdirection within the CDC on the announcement ….
jamesb says
Talking Points Memo
@TPM
CDC Director Defends Lifting Mask Recommendations For Vaccinated People https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/cdc-director-walensky-mask-requirements