The states ARE moving to relax mask restrictions….
(The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , CDC actually only makes recommendations)
And the President’s ‘top medical adviser’ , Dr. Fauci, has also joined the CDC Director Walensky in acknowledging that things are shifting to the states and local officials…..
The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the agency is still not ready to make recommendations on relaxing mask requirements, even as more governors announce their intentions to do so.
“We are working on that guidance,” Rochelle Walensky told reporters during a White House briefing, but “our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high. So as we work towards that and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.”
Her comments come as a growing number of states, like California, Delaware and New York announced this week their intentions to drop indoor mask mandates in the coming days. Some others, like Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey, are eliminating mask mandates in schools….
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White House coronavirus coordinator Jeff Zients was similarly silent on whether the White House was planning to shift away from its current focus on responding to a COVID-19 emergency, including any off-ramp metrics for governors to use….
An Additional political view that I have observed about the mask retreats going on across the country ….
At a news conference announcing the end to a universal indoor mask mandate Friday, Delaware Gov. John Carney (D) said that “a leader without followers is not very effective leadership, so somehow you have to strike the balance there to keep people following you.”
This adds up to a pivotal moment in the politics of the pandemic. From the outset, Democrats urged public health restrictions while Republicans largely rejected them despite the science showing they would save lives. But now — with many Americans vaccinated, the public deeply impatient and the current surge fading — many Democrats are concluding that the time for aggressive statewide measures has passed and are unwilling to risk a further electoral backlash…..