Millions of vaccinated people in the United States are celebrating the prospect of soon ditching their masks when they go out to dinner or cheer on their favorite team from the stands.
But for some people, letting go of the science that drove them to take precautions is proving more difficult than embracing the science that says it’s now safe for them to stop.
NEW YORK AND MASSACHUSETTS TO LIFT MASK MANDATES
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week that fully vaccinated people can forgo face coverings in nearly all indoor and outdoor settings, bringing an end to some of the most burdensome restrictions that crippled businesses for more than a year.
Its announcement came without warning and took some state leaders by surprise. The result has been a national conversation about science, risk, and the psychology of abandoning the habits that have punctuated pandemic life.
Psychologists have long said habits take time to form and, therefore, to be broken — but the habits formed to guard against a deadly virus could prove especially difficult for some people to shed.
“Abrupt shifts in regulations don’t give us time to mentally prepare and consider the rationale for a change before it’s upon us,” Katy Milkman, a behavioral scientist and professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told the Washington Examiner.
“There is still a lot of virus circulating in the United States, and for people who are at all risk-averse, it can be difficult to let go of measures that they’ve come to trust as protection against that very real and very frightening threat.”
In the thick of the pandemic, experts urged an empathetic and patient approach to encourage compliance with mask mandates among those reluctant to wear their face coverings — and the same is likely to be true of resistance to the similarly science-backed end of those mandates.
“I don’t think pressuring other people in your life who aren’t ready to change would be a good idea because we all have our own levels of risk tolerance, and there is no need to shame anyone who has been through a traumatic year into sharing your degree of comfort with this change,” said Milkman, the author of How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.
Indeed, some people across the country reacted to the CDC’s news last week with fear that the public health agency had moved too quickly and vowed to continue wearing their masks due to uncertainty about who within their communities remains unvaccinated.
While many cities and states moved quickly to implement CDC guidance regarding the start of pandemic-related restrictions, some are moving more slowly to put in place CDC guidance regarding their end.
In California, vaccinated people won’t enjoy the relaxed rules until June 15, when the state will allow restrictions on businesses and mask mandates to expire. California health officials said they wanted to allow more time for vaccination rates to go up before they loosen the restrictions, although some of the state’s businesses have expressed frustration that they face another month of rules that other states are ditching.
In New Jersey, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said his state would indefinitely keep in place its indoor mask mandate for all people, regardless of vaccination status, despite the scientific evidence supporting vaccine efficacy.
“We’re just not ready yet. We’ve been clobbered not once but twice. We’ve lost over 26,000 people. We know the virus is more lethal indoors,” Murphy said Monday on CNN. “And you’re asking somebody that’s at the hardware store working there or at a retail or grocery store to make the judgment on who’s vaccinated and who’s not.”
His state’s approach will clash with those taken in neighboring New York and Pennsylvania, which both moved to bring their state guidelines in line with the new CDC recommendations.
Regional variations in the newfound freedoms, at least in the short term, are a byproduct of the sudden nature of the CDC’s decision.
In the nation’s capital, fully vaccinated residents no longer have to wear a mask in any building that doesn’t require it. But in nearby Baltimore, face masks are still required for everyone indoors, and sometimes even outdoors, such as at sports events.
Hawaii is also not lifting its mask mandates for now, as state leaders say they plan to review the new guidelines.
The CDC’s rollout of its new guidelines caused confusion for reasons that went beyond the sudden nature of the announcement. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky at first highlighted the update as a new era in the pandemic response but later seemed to suggest it was a less sweeping change.
“This was not permission to shed masks for everybody everywhere,” Walensky said on Sunday.
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The CDC left mask-wearing recommendations in place for several situations, such as on airplanes.
And Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, sparked further confusion in the days since the announcement when he was seen wearing a mask outdoors despite being vaccinated. Fauci attempted to explain his decision to continue masking by saying he did not want to send “mixed signals” with a bare face.
