The White House continued its streak of incrementally rolling back pandemic guidance on Monday, allowing 50% capacity in the press briefing room and dropping mask requirements for vaccinated individuals.
Since President Joe Biden appeared in the Rose Garden on May 13 to announce the relaxed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mask guidance for vaccine recipients, COVID-19 safety policy in and around Pennsylvania Avenue has been slowly moving toward a pre-pandemic lifestyle. NBC News’s White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell tweeted Monday that the press room now had 24 seats filled, meaning the press room now supports up to 50% capacity for reporters.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki even signaled a push toward acceptable close-contact interactions between individuals in the press room, saying on Friday, “I can confirm we’re a warm and fuzzy crew and we like to hug around here.”
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Aides and guests have been seen shaking hands, hugging, and kissing in between the formalities, moves that would have previously been at odds with pandemic social-distancing precautions.
Psaki said the effort to return to a more normal environment inside the briefing room was part of “continuing to open the White House up, the ‘people’s house,’ up to the American people.”
The Biden administration has touted an honor system for U.S. residents to enact a full return to normality following the pandemic. Biden has said, “If you’re fully vaccinated, you can now go mask-less in most settings,” though Psaki acknowledged on Friday the White House did not have plans to verify vaccination status.
The CDC earlier this month issued new guidance indicating that immunized people were at low risk of contracting COVID-19 and no longer needed to wear masks indoors or outdoors, except in specific circumstances.
Due to social distancing guidelines, the number of journalists allowed inside the White House decreased once the pandemic hit, with the briefing room only about a quarter full for Psaki’s daily question-and-answer sessions at the outset of the Biden administration.
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More than 32 million cases of COVID-19 have been diagnosed in the United States, with 587,342 U.S. deaths attributed to the disease, according to data collected by the CDC.
The Washington Examiner contacted the White House but did not immediately receive a response.
