Back around Easter time, Dr. Rochelle Walensky (below), director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was afraid we were on the cusp of another COVID surge. Then she was criticized for keeping numerous COVID restrictions in place when a surge did not happen. Now she's gone completely in the opposite direction and announced that people who are fully vaccinated against VOCID can now go anywhere, including public indoor spaces, without wearing a face covering, which I will henceforth refer to in this post as an FC. (I stopped wearing mine outside long before the CDC said I could, because not needing an FC outside was already common knowledge.)
At first hearing, Dr. Walensky's announcement was greeted with enthusiasm. The, almost immediately, we had to curb that enthusiasm. Too many questions that no one can sufficiently answer ensued. How can businesses like stores and bars know which customers have been vaccinated? How do customers prove it? Also, the new guideline was expected to encourage more unvaccinated people to get the COVID vaccine. But what about people who lie about getting vaccinated just so they don't have to wear an FC when thy go in the supermarket? Even Dr. Leana Wen, who had problems with the CDC being too strict with its guidelines after the rate of COVID infections dropped over the early spring, now says that the CDC is now being too lenient, an that the new guidelines could cause that very fourth COVID surge Dr. Walensky feared in early April.
Thanks to decisions made in the private sector and by state and local governments, though, none of the CDC's new guidelines and recommendations matter. Many chain stores, such as Target and Home Depot, still require FCs at their locations, and while several states are lifting FC mandates, New Jersey is not one of them. Governor Phil Murphy said that the FC mandate in the state, will continue for several more weeks, despite the fact that the rate of full vaccination in New Jersey is higher than the country at large. )New York and California are keeping their FC mandates in place as well.) And in the U.S. House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that the FC rule on the House floor will continue because too many Republican House members haven't gotten vaccinated yet. She'll gladly lift the rule when enough of them do. But, of course, even if they do so privately despite all the anti-vaccine rhetoric in the GOP and tell Speaker Pelosi in full confidence, it will become apparent that GOP House members will have gotten vaccinated simply because the FC rule has been lifted. The Republicans have a large minority caucus in the House, five seats away from taking control, and so a lot of them have to get a COVID shot before the FC rule in the House floor is lifted. A fully vaccinated Democratic House caucus won't be enough to have the rule lifted. If House Republicans are seen as having gotten vaccinated against COVID and going against the view of constituents who don't trust the vaccine, they'll get voted out of office for "selling out." So even if some House Republicans get vaccinated against COVID in private, they will not tell Speaker Pelosi, who, in turn, will not lift the FC rule. (The rule has been dropped in the Senate, as most Republican senators, more confident in their standings with voters statewide, have been vaccinated, Kentucky's Rand Paul and Wisconsin's Ron Johnson - both having had COVID - being exceptions.)
Perversely, the joint session of Congress President Biden addressed in April should have been an FC-free zone. Only vaccinated lawmakers and lawmakers who tested negative within 24 hours of the speech were allowed on the House floor, yet they still had to wear FCs despite it being a COVID-free environment. (The entire Congress was not in attendance, of course.) Thus, when we saw two women - Speaker Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris - sit behind the President on the House dais for the first time, we couldn't see their faces. It became an historic moment for all the wrong reasons. Dr. Wen thought that enforcing the FC mandate in the House even for President Biden's speech sent the wrong message when it was already proven that everyone in the room did not have COVID and they could have gone without FCs to show that vaccines work. Now she thinks the CDC is sending the wrong message by saying that anyone fully vaccinated from COVID can stop wearing FCs everywhere - when the Speaker of the House, many state governors, and a whole bunch of national chains have made it clear that we most certainly can not.
The CDC has gone from downplaying the virus under Trump to being overcautious, then inconsistent, under Biden. My biggest fear is that the more the CDC tries to clarify its directives on COVID, the more confusion it will cause.
And I'll have to keep writing very long blog posts on the subject.
One more wrinkle: Despite having been fully vaccinated against COVID, several people, including comedian Bill Maher and several members of the New York Yankees baseball team, have tested positive for the disease. At a time of vaccine hesitancy, how is Dr. Walensky going to handle that?
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