Some epidemiological and policy experts are questioning the timing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to lift mask guidelines for vaccinated people, arguing the data have not changed in recent days.
Experts in epidemiology and public policy, including those who are left-leaning, questioned the CDC’s reversal in dropping requirements that fully vaccinated individuals wear masks both indoors and outdoors, with few exceptions.
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Some medical professionals doubted the updated guidelines for reasons ranging from inadvertently deincentivizing vaccinations to concerns regarding a reliance on the “honor system” when verifying vaccination status.
Dr. Leana Wen, a physician and columnist, called the CDC’s recent “about-face” as a decision that was “shockingly abrupt,” instead offering two intermediary steps before fully dropping mask requirements for vaccinated people.
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“1) Fully vaccinated people should have no restrictions on public activities if vaccination status can be verified. That means stores & workplaces can be at full capacity, without masks, if they check vaccination status. … 2) They could set a level of community vaccination, at which point they can do away with verification. … We’re not yet. This new guidance is premature & should be clarified,” she said. “We’ve come a long way in #covid19, but not as far as the CDC has suddenly taken us.”
Epidemiologist and health economist Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding claimed asymptomatic transmission was still possible among the fully vaccinated population.
“Vaccinate but still try to protect others who cannot / unable / unwilling (yes, let’s protect them too),” he said. “How many transmissions will there be if we ditch masks too early?”
Dr. Lucky Tran, who has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, encouraged public health experts to consider “trust in public health guidance for future pandemics.”
“By suddenly dropping masks instead of slowly easing restrictions based on data, the CDC is feeding the idea that masks are oppressive, which will come back to bite us next pandemic,” Tran said.
Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University who specializes in public health law, argued the CDC’s gambit to entice the unvaccinated to get their COVID-19 shots would be harmful to public health.
“CDC is betting that by giving wide freedom to vaccinated people it’ll encourage the hesitant. But there’s no behavioral evidence for that,” he wrote. “What’s more likely to happen is that both vaccinated AND unvaccinated people will take off their masks. That’s not good for public health.”
Others questioned the move from a political standpoint. New York City Councilmember Mark Levine, who said he would “keep wearing [his] mask at the supermarket,” criticized the policy for being operated on the “honor system.”
“Very few public venues in NYC are checking vaccine/test status. That means a rule change that allows only unvax’d people to remove their masks would have to function on the honor system. How would store staff enforce this?” he said, noting that over half of the city’s population has not received a single COVID-19 shot.
Some suggested the timing of the CDC’s guidance was intended to cache recent political obstacles faced by President Joe Biden, with Spectator contributor Stephen Miller suggesting that the abandoned mask requirements were designed to distract the public from the hack of the Colonial Pipeline.
“If you think that suddenly science changed with the virus that today just became that magical day that we no longer needed masks, and not, say an overwhelming news cycle of events for this WH, I don’t know what to tell you,” he added.
Biden has been attempting to clear several political hurdles.
Tensions have flared in the Middle East, with Israel and Palestine on the brink of potential warfare after disputes over evictions in East Jerusalem led to hundreds of deaths, and a surge in border crossings caused 178,622 migrants, a 20-year record, to attempt to traverse the U.S.-Mexico border in April.
A ransomware attack May 7 on the Colonial Pipeline forced the company to shut down its 5,500-mile artery spanning from Houston to New York City as it investigated the nature of the attack, causing gasoline shortages in the Southeast after drivers stocking up on fuel led to increased prices at the pump.
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The COVID-19 pandemic, which has plagued the U.S. and nations around the world for over a year, has ebbed somewhat in recent weeks. The seven-day average of daily new cases decreased by 23.6% since last week, according to the CDC.
The U.S. has seen 32,722,464 cases of COVID-19, with 582,263 deaths attributed to the disease, according to the agency. With vaccines available to all U.S. residents older than 12, 59.4% of all adults have received at least one shot, and 46.6% of adults are fully vaccinated, the CDC added.
