23
votes
Joe Biden: “Great day for America;” Vaccinated can largely ditch masks
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- Title
- AP source: Govt to ease up guidance on indoor mask-wearing
- Published
- May 13 2021
- Word count
- 504 words
I absolutely hate this announcement.
There have already been too many people around refusing to wear masks. Now they have an easy out by saying "I'm vaccinated, so it's ok." Regardless of how true that statement is.
I'm looking forward to the gigantic spike in cases in about 2 weeks. /s
I agree than mandates are needed, but are unlikely to happen for awhile. American's hate mandates, and that's why we never really exited first wave.
The social pressure and ease of enforcement is the entire point. Wearing masks are about keeping you from infecting others. It's quite obvious vaccinated people wouldn't really need them, but keeping the mask policies will work better for the same reason people implement zero-tolerance policies: ease of enforcement. Giving everyone a free pass to go maskless because you can't prove they're not allowed to is asking for trouble based on how hard it has been to enforce up until this point.
With this announcement mask enforcement is going to drop to zero, leaving the majority of people (see my cousin post) unprotected.
You want incentive? Announce that the nation can go maskless at 90% vaccinnated, until them mandates remain.
The people not getting vaccines in areas without supply issues are not going to get the vaccinne to go maskless. They are going to lie about it. By enforcing a measurable number to be met there's an incentive because they'll be in a prisoner's dilemma if they don't.
Evvry vaccinated person I know doesm't mind the continued mask wearing. We take them off in private now, but we understand why presentation is important in a society that values 'freedom' over legitimate science.
I think you've made some good points (which I disagree with, but will let be on their own). However, I do have one thing I vehemently disagree with:
Yes, in some circumstances. But not currently indoors, where the mandates are upheld best and enforcement is the most important. That is where things will fall apart.
And semi-separately, this quote from the article:
Is in direct opposition to the spring break outburst of varients. We're pushing return to normal before we're ready, and it's going to hurt.
I have friends in more rural areas saying dumb things like "Man you city folk are paranoid, everything is getting better" without comprehending that because our population density is orders of magnitude higher, but our vaccine percentage is lower, any small outbreak can be a big outbreak in very short order.
I well and truly hope I am wrong about the spike. But you can bet I'm not going anywhere maskless, or in an area with a large quantity of maskless people, until I see infection rates drop below 1%. I encourage everyone, regardless of their vaccination status, to do the same.
Because no state is at 50% vaccinated yet. Over 2/3 of of the states are under 1/3 vaccinated. The rollout hasn't been geographically focused, so herd immunity isn't a thing yet. Plus very few children have been vaccinated yet.
32 million confirmed cases is only 10% of the population. If you assume the actual cases is double, we're still less than 60% protected. Not even factoring the antibodies not neccessarily lasting more than a few months.
This was a premature announcement, and I'll happily eat my words if I am wrong.
There’s not a lot of nuances in what the CDC is saying; unvaccinated people still have to wear masks in general, but for vaccinated folks, they are only federally required to wear them in public transportation and strongly encouraged to wear them in hospitals. Obviously things are still different at the state level.
The CDC doesn't say anything at all about requirements. The CDC is saying that they've collected enough information to conclude that it's not medically necessary for vaccinated people to wear masks in most circumstances. That's it. Even at the Federal level, individual agencies still have to update their internal rules to lift mask requirements.
This is great news, but it doesn't change requirements at all on its own.
I don't think anyone reading this that was already wearing a mask will be stupid enough to Karen their way into a store without a mask just because the CDC says they don't need to. It'll take time for stores to take down their mask signs. It'll take time for local laws to get adjusted.
POTUS is saying "hey the CDC says you don't need masks if you're vaccinated". It's hard to interpret this with an implicit "but you might still have to".
I get that businesses and states can still require you to wear a mask regardless but it makes for extremely mixed messaging.
Anyway I think the US is getting to the point where there needs to be incentives for people to get vaccinated now. Telling them "get a shot, drop the mask" is bound to be somewhat effective.
Straight from the horse's mouth: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html