President Joe Biden’s CDC announced new guidelines last week, recommending that people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 wear masks indoors again, especially when they are with unvaccinated individuals.

Whatever the merits of this thinking (and we are unpersuaded), it is implicit acknowledgment by the Biden administration that efforts to contain the virus have failed, as they were doomed to from the outset. Scientists and doctors have found ways to mitigate the disease’s effects through vaccination and treatment, but it will keep spreading anyway.