The federal government has fallen behind many states over decisions to rescind mask mandates now that the omicron wave is subsiding, leaving an ideological gulf between Democratic governors and the Biden administration.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy set off a gubernatorial frenzy on Monday to lift mask mandates across a series of blue states, such as Illinois, New York, and Connecticut. In total, eight Democratic governors and one Republican, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, have lifted their states’ mask mandates in some capacity. Several have maintained their mask requirements for K-12 schools for now, with plans to lift them over the next month.
“The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] needs to ‘catch up’ with the governors of the party of the Biden administration because this current federal versus state response is looking very fractured,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an expert in infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco. “I would encourage the federal and state response to try to align.”
Despite the fast-moving domino effect, the Biden administration is keeping its conservative guidance unchanged, while CDC Director Rochelle Walensky insisted on Wednesday that “we certainly understand the need and desire to be flexible.”
THE NINE BLUE STATES ANNOUNCING ENDS TO MASK MANDATES
When asked whether the federal government should be more closely aligned with state governments regarding mandatory masking, Walensky told reporters that “those decisions can be made at the local level.”
“I do think masks worked, but I also think the Democrat governors are following the science at this point in the pandemic in terms of responding to vaccination and hospitalization rates,” Gandhi said.
By easing restrictions and mandates, Democratic states will be coming into closer alignment with GOP-led states, such as Florida and Texas. Red states have spurned such mitigation measures since early in the pandemic, with leaders such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis arguing that they were not justified and were harmful even before the omicron variant hit.
The CDC has been plagued with criticism that it too frequently goes against scientific consensus in order to issue more politically palatable guidance. For instance, the agency revised the recommended period of isolation after testing positive from 10 days to five as a growing cadre of businesses, such as Delta Air Lines, sounded the alarm about exacerbated staffing shortages due to those guidelines.
The agency also abruptly changed its mask guidance in May 2021 to give vaccinated people the option to ditch their masks when indoors while still recommending that unvaccinated people wear them. Walensky said that being fully vaccinated meant a person could “participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing.” Just over two months later, the CDC walked back that guidance, recommending with the looming threat of the delta variant taking over that even vaccinated people mask up.
The agency will consider making the latest changes to the guidelines as hospitalizations due to COVID-19 continue to fall. For now, though, Walensky said, “As we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet.”
Right now, the CDC says that people should wear masks indoors where transmission is “substantial,” meaning 50 to 100 cases per 100,000, or “high,” meaning 100 cases for every 100,000 people. That makes up roughly the entire country. In New York, for example, the per capita case rate this week is still about 278 for every 100,000 people, according to the CDC.
Cases and hospitalizations in the United States have plummeted in the past two weeks, but deaths remain high, with about 2,600 confirmed each day over the past week. Officials are fearful that lifting widespread masking recommendations could backfire if another highly transmissible and virulent strain comes along.
“Over next year or so, I can imagine masks used intermittently as needed. In a COVID surge next winter, a mayor might call for masking for a month to reduce spread. Masks on as surges start, off during quiet times. That’s how many countries do it,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
Public health experts argue that hospitalization rates are a better indicator of how local communities are faring against the virus. Gandhi, for instance, said that masking should be mandatory when a region’s intensive care unit capacity exceeds 85%, which is considered full. When ICUs are less than full and less than 20% of patients in ICUs are there for COVID-19, mask mandates could be deemed unnecessary. All of the states that pulled their mask mandates fulfill that criteria, she said.
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When the CDC last lifted the recommendation for widespread masking in May 2021, the weekly average number of cases announced daily was roughly 35,400 and an average of about 35,500 patients were in hospitals every day that week. Currently, case rates and hospitalizations in the U.S. are far off. Roughly 228,000 new cases have been confirmed in the U.S. every day this week, and about 110,000 people are now being treated for COVID-19 in hospitals.
The CDC did not respond to a request for comment.
