I see that David Leonhardt is taking a victory lap. He and Nate Silver, and a number of other people, including Zeynep Tufekci, have told us all along that they know better than the CDC and WHY HASN’T EVERYONE BEEN LISTENING TO THEM INSTEAD.
Their arguments have been
When are we going to be there, Mommy?
I don’t like this mask.
When are we going to be there, Mommy?
We need to get back to normal.
When are we going to be there, Mommy?
And, oh yes, The CDC Is Doing It Wrong.
All of them seem unaware of the basics of exponential increase. I’ll repeat it here, as I have been doing forever on Twitter: It looks slow until it is out of control. Those are the two options. We didn’t get the coronavirus when it was increasing slowly last spring. And last summer, because WE NEED TO GO TO BARS!
The CDC came out with new guidance yesterday: Fully vaccinated people need not wear masks around each other, and in some cases when unvaccinated potential disease-spreaders are present. But still on public transportation and in other places. Unvaccinated people must continue to wear masks.
Um, okay.
The timing of the CDC guidance makes it look like they have bent to the whiners, and perhaps they have. But they have been edging closer to no-mask guidance. I like to think that they have modeled a number of situations, and given the levels of vaccination and previous infection, we won’t get too much of a bump up in cases when everyone tosses their masks. They don’t say much about modeling, but I know they are doing some in the back room. That result agrees with my intuitive modeler’s sense. But modelers know that intuition sometimes is badly wrong, so I’m not here to tell you that we won’t have a bump up in cases.
It’s possible that CDC has good reasons for the guidance and this wasn’t a cave to the whiners. There’s no way to know.
Many people who want to be vaccinated have not been. Vaccines have just been opened up to children between 12 and 15 years. The immunocompromised may be unable to be fully vaccinated.
Those who assertively refuse the vaccines or to wear masks properly will be the first to doff their masks. They are also the most likely to be carrying the virus. There is no way to tell if someone is vaccinated by looking at them. This will be particularly hard on retail workers.
The CDC guidance says nothing about vaccinated parents with unvaccinated children. It looks like immunocompromised people will have to quarantine for several more months, no guidance to them.
We still are seeing tens of thousands of new cases and hundreds of deaths A DAY in the United States. The pandemic is burning fiercely in India and other parts of the world. We are still in the middle of this thing. Mommy doesn’t know when we will be there, whatever there the whiners are looking for.
My own measure for when the pandemic is under control is when the hot spots can be defined so that we can focus vaccinations on them. We’re not there. I saw an epidemiologist say their measure is 1 case per 100,000 per day. We’re at something like 15 now.
Many of us will continue to mask in public settings. I am mentally preparing responses to yahoos who try to rag me about taking it off. “Mind your own business” is a good start.
But David Leonhardt is happy.
Baud
This is common on the tubes. Being an early advocate for something somehow makes you the driving force for change when other people make it happen. It’s just a more sophisticated version of declaring FIRST on a blog.
ETA: FIRST!
Matt McIrvin
My cousin in PA got COVID and ended up in the hospital just a few weeks ago. My town just slipped from “Red” to “Yellow” under the state’s conditions. I’m 3 weeks away from “fully vaccinated” and my kid is 5 weeks away. It’s surreal for me to see people treating this as if it’s over and you’re crazy if you don’t let up.
Spanky
Still all masked at the grocery this AM.
Frankly, I think this is going to result in a flair-up, and with elementary school kids still unprotected, I think they’ll bear the brunt.
Wapiti
I swung by the coffee shop this morning, here in the still-masking socialist hellhole of Seattle. The counterperson asks the customers (parent and kid) at the register what they’re doing today; the parent says the kid is getting their first shot. Guy behind them volunteers that his kid is getting his first shot Tuesday. People are positive about this; they’re doing something that will ease the pandemic.
guachi
I think we are at a point where we’ve hit the diminishing returns of masking and distancing in many occasions.
It certainly looks like vaccinations are outrunning the virus and vaccine hesitancy keeps dropping.
There are some groups still left in the cold but I think the benefits to the 150 million vaccinated are worth it.
Gravenstone
Honestly, from the title I expected Cole.
And I agree that people need to be prepared (and allowed) to do things based on their own circumstance and comfort level without having to deal with loud mouthed bullies and know-it-alls.
Anthony
My vaccinated friend and his vaccinated wife caught a relatively bad case recently (for a vaccinated person, felt bad for 2 days) when their school-age kids brought it home.
Sayne
This is a direct copy-paste from a FB Page called Your Local Epidemiologist, run by a woman with a MPH and PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=286903963091250&id=100053149454347
I hope she’s wrong… but I think she’s right.
JanieM
My daughter got her first shot today. She said she was the only person there without a twelve-year-old in tow. I was glad to hear that the newly eligible age group was out in force.
I will continue to wear a mask in public places where there are other people, and I will be hard put to it to be as polite as “Mind your own business” if someone accosts me about it.
MattF
Agree that the CDC recommendation is most likely following the results of model computations. With the usual caveats, e.g., ‘It’s hard to make predictions, particularly about the future’.
Anonymous At Work
Silver’s a baseball guy at heart. Yankees, 8 positives, all vaccinated (they say!). Repeated, continual exposure overcame the vaccine to give low-level cases. It’s unclear if those 8 were shedding (the virus) and could have infected children, the immunocompromised, etc.
And the tale of public health agencies is the same: MOVE FASTER! WHY DID YOU LET PEOPLE DIE? MOVE FASTER! WHY DID YOU LET PEOPLE DIE? ad naseum.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Why “grow up” when society so often rewards and accommodates childishness (among the privileged)?
Rusty
A discussion sprang up on this with a couple of coworkers. One, very conservative (with a medical degree no less) said it was now illegal for a company to demand masks, and that masks made absolutely no difference with the pandemic. Ideology is clearly stronger than a medical school education.
On the good side, out 12 year old gets shot number one tomorrow! Hallelujah!!
Alex
Michigan just dropped the indoor mask mandate as of tomorrow morning. (Unvaccinated are supposed to keep wearing until July 1, but…) We are at 26 reported cases yesterday per 100,000, more than two thirds of adult Detroit residents have not gotten a covid shot, and today is the first day 12-15 year olds were even eligible. This means hundreds, maybe thousands, more deaths in the state and a prolongation of isolation for people with poor health or small children. The governor previously pegged the mask rule to vaccination rates, but she seems to have decided that with the CDC announcement it would be impossible to stick to that in an increasingly ungovernable state. The Republican legislature is still attempting to use the budget process to undermine her powers– holding vaccine and school funds hostage to try to get her to sign away emergency health powers. She must know lifting the mask rule won’t make them suddenly realize they should work with her and stop supporting the folks who plotted to murder her, so I really wish she had held out a few weeks more to get vaccine numbers up and cases down.
Fair Economist
I will admit when Gavin Newsom started lifting restrictions after the holiday catastrophe here in CA I thought it was much too early. But supposedly that was based on modeling and it turned out to be more or less correct. Given that cases are falling even in areas which have intentionally and maliciously blocked public health measures like FL and TX, maybe the point is that we will be basically OK even with mask mandates basically gone. We’ll never have the counterfactual of continuing restrictions to compare to anyway.
Leto
“Fuck off” will be mine. Avalune and I will continue wearing ours. Gov Wolf is still requiring masks for indoors/public transport and I still believe that’s the best course for the foreseeable future. The antivaxxers/conservatives/dumbshits who refuse to take it will just lie and try to kill the rest of us. No thanks.
Greg
The Government should next eliminate the funding for the hospitalization of those that choose not to be vaccinated. Keep it in place for those that were vaccinated, and those that can’t be vaccinated. Put the banner “Personal Responsibility” on it, and even suggest that insurance companies can refuse payment for those without a vaccination as well. That would be a real stick, to go along with the “free” carrot.
And yes, I know that this would be a near impossible ask of Congress, and it would be extraordinarily difficult to write, pass and administer. But I would like to see the reaction if my pipe dream was floated by some serious people in Washington.
JCJ
As a medical student I was in a few surgeries that lasted 8 – 10 hours. Everyone in the OR wore masks the whole time. Because of this my perspective might be different, but what is so bothersome about wearing a mask in the grocery store?
Cameron
So far at least some of the vaccines are handling the COVID variants we know about pretty well. Unfortunately there are going to continue to be new ones popping up, since so much of the world doesn’t have access to vaccines. That’s why I’m going to keep wearing a mask in a lot of situations even though I’ve gotten the shots.
I’m sure this isn’t original, but I’ve heard so much crap about masks that I hear the voice of Pat Morita in my head saying, “Mask on. Mask off.” Over and over again…
artem1s
I would imagine it has a lot to do with having millions more vaccinated who are showing little signs of getting infected by variants and, more important, those who do test positive after even one shot are NOT DYING! The information about the effectiveness is there largely because the CDC can now collect good information and don’t have to rely on crap GQP governors who are trying to hide stuff. They can take this step and be reasonably sure that even the Reddest backward ass states with the poorest vaccine rates won’t end up with an overloaded health care system.
It’s not the CDC I mistrust when it comes to making good decision and/or folding to pressure. It’s the media spin on Federal government oversight and idiot anti-maskers and anit-vaxers who have no reasoning skills that I don’t trust.
Barbara
I have not been completely vaccinated and will continue to wear a mask indoors in retail locations even after I get the second shot. It’s just Not. A. Big. Deal. Nate Silver is permanently off of my list of go to sources. Really, really underwhelmed at how banal his opinions and attitudes are when they don’t depend on analyzing statistics.
jackmac
Are Trumpers still running the CDC? Unmasking is an idiotic call.
Leto
@JCJ: The surgeons who put me back together were in for about the same amount of time (roughly 10 hours). They all managed to survive that ordeal and meet me on the other side when I woke up. But I’m sure that 30 min trip to the store will absolute suffocate you…. /smfh
bbleh
Let’s just hope the CDC’s scientific expertise is greater than their political acumen. Props to the Biden people for rolling as smoothly as they could with it. And good luck expecting stupid Americans to stop behaving stupidly who’s stupid I’m not stupid don’t call me stupid
Spanky
I have no expectation that the cloth mask I wear will keep me from getting it. It’s purpose is to keep me from spreading it if I’m infected. And now I’ll have to be face to face with unmasked assholes who don’t care whether I get it or not.
No one should be surprised if I get a bit rude on their asses.
Feathers
I live near Somerville, MA, which was the subject of that horrible recent Atlantic article about people who don’t want the restrictions to end. It went on and on about people “not listening to the scientists.”
Well, having worked for a research group at MIT, scientists are incredibly naive about people taking all their caveats into account. There are no people who lie about being vaccinated in their model. If they say schools can be reopened with proper ventilation modifications, they don’t understand that the superintendent will announce that the schools are safe and will reopen, when what she means is that making the schools actually safe would cost $7 million, so they are as safe as they can be for no extra money being spent.
What the people who didn’t want the schools reopened were saying is that they didn’t trust that the school system would do what it would take to make it safe for students and staff. This is the same with no masks for the vaccinated. People know that it is safe, they just don’t trust that the maskless people will be vaccinated.
zzyzx
I think we were heading for a world where the only people who were still masking were already vaccinated. Seattle is still doing it but the 16+ population is already 70% vaccinated. Meanwhile on my trip to Utah last month, hardly anyone was masking in UT or ID despite much lower vaccination numbers.
The thing is that our numbers are declining rapidly enough to make me think that we’ve reached enough vaccinated people to make this harder to spread. It’s not herd immunity, but I think the days of massive waves in the US are over, barring vaccines wearing off quicker than detected or a new mutation that actually is vaccine immune.
Another Scott
I think the CalculatedRiskBlog metrics are good ones:
The particular exact metrics probably don’t matter as much as the trends.
With that said, I do wish that the press and the public paid less attention to the daily vaccination numbers and more to the community spread numbers. [rant #2134219] Countries that have controlled the pandemic did so via public health measures, not via vaccination. That’s the way out in the near term, because we’re not going to vaccinate everyone in the short term. Get the community spread numbers low enough to do accurate testing, contact tracing, and isolation/quarantine – that’s the way we break the back of the pandemic. And while doing that, vaccinate everyone we can.[/rant #2134219]
My $0.02
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Obvious Russian Troll
@JCJ: I wore a full respirator mask for most of the day for a good six months while I analyzed blood samples. I also got the Hepatitis B vaccine as a requirement by my employer to work on that study.
The amount of whining people do about both masks and vaccines is maddening.
dc
The CDC guidelines also say to follow local and state ordinances and business requirements:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html
Falling Diphthong
I’d say Zeynep, at least, has been arguing that people can understand nuance and it doesn’t have to be “5.5 ft bad, 6.5 ft totally safe” which is easy to say but not actually accurate. I was hoping the CDC would (some time ago) put out guidelines like “These are 5 of the important indicators–there are others, but these are big–and we would want to see them reaching these levels before we recommended stopping masks.” The CDC does not seem to be very good at public messaging, something that got obscured when TFG was being just bat**** nuts and drowning out everything else.
Story I (a science nerd) sent my daughter (also a science nerd) re the aerosol vs droplet stuff. In March 2020 I was certainly dutifully repeating the stuff about how you needed some nonbreathable filter in your fabric mask or it was useless against aerosols; meanwhile the countries that went ahead and masked up right away with disposable paper masks lapped up over and over.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
Bill in Section 147
As I have from the beginning, I will err on the side of caution. My immediate family, spouse and kids have all been vaxed. When I am with a group of people I trust, who are all vaccinated, I will comfortably not wear a mask. I work three days a week in a retail establishment and two or three co-workers are GOP, or conspiracy theorists (are they the same now?) won’t get vaxed, and will probably not wear a mask once the county allows vaccinated people to go without.
I am not sure what the policy will be and I am not worried for myself. I still worry that people who are immune-system-compromised will be victims of anti-vaxers/anti-maskers. Sadly there is nothing you can do to fix willful ignorance and selfishness.
RepubAnon
@JanieM: I’m going to stay masked for a while. If I catch any Tucker Turkey flack, my response will be: “Cry, little buttercup, cry.”
HinTN
@Rusty: Smart people whom I know, engineers mostly, are often the ones least likely to follow the data. They are reflexively conservative about almost all the politicized topics these days.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The inverse is true too; they are going look like complete frauds because only someone who’s been fully vaccinated would risk taking their mask off. At the very lest this destroys the tribal marker for an Anti-Vaccier.
sdhays
Thanks for this, Cheryl. This is what I’ve been thinking, but it’s good to be validated by someone much more knowledgeable. I really don’t understand how 36K NEW cases per day is considered having put the virus behind us.
As one of those people with an unvaccinated child (who will remain unvaccinated still for quite some time since he’s only 2), I was really hoping to see the country finally crush the virus so that it actually became safe for him to do things like accompany me to the grocery store sometime this summer. But, just like last summer, a “slow, but uncontrolled burn” is completely acceptable for far too many people.
I hope we’re able to achieve vaccination levels soon enough to still achieve that despite the marshmallow gobblers.
narya
As I mentioned in this morning’s open thread, I ran w/o a mask today, for the first time in more than a year. (I would often pull it down when no one was around, but always back up when there were others in view.) But I had one in my pocket! I expect to continue wearing a mask to the store, and I don’t expect to suddenly start going out to all kinds of places. I’m being super cautious, not least because I’d like to visit my family later this year, and my mom is both vaccinated and immunocompromised (kidney transplant; those w/ organ transplants may not have a full immune response). It’s just not that big a deal, and, because I’m in a blue corner of a blue city in a blue state, I don’t expect a lot of hassle for that choice. We’ll see. ETA: And I still don’t want to get sick! The vaccine is doing wonders, for sure, but it’s still out there, it’s still creating variants.
MattF
I think part of the problem is that with exponential increase or decrease, the criteria that need to be monitored are not based on meeting numerical goals, but rather on the global behavior of the number of cases. If the number of cases is decreasing exponentially, then you are in a good place, even if the number of cases is high. OTOH, if the cases are increasing exponentially… you’re likely in deep doo-doo, even if there aren’t very many cases.
Josie
I’m in Houston. Went to HEB and Petsmart this morning. Everyone was masked in both places.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s August. I’m opening the Christmas presents now.
artem1s
@JCJ:
mask wearing is for heathen shithole countries – not the greatestest nation in the history of the universe! USA!!USA!!!9/11!!!USA!!USA
seriously, everything with the wingnut right can be boiled down to racism, misogyny, and supposed white Christian nationalist superiority.
zzyzx
@sdhays: the thing is that there are tradeoffs. When we were having 200,000 new cases and 4k deaths a day despite being locked down, it was obvious what the right call would be. When cases and deaths are both declining steadily, it is time to at least think about reevaluating.
Since both Inslee and Brown are willing to change the mask rules, I don’t think this is a knee jerk impatient decision as both were willing to keep their states shut down forever if need be. It looks like the risk analysis is legitimately changing right now.
And having said that, I don’t plan to change my behavior wrt masks any time soon. I’ll wear them in stores and the gym but not when I’m outside or at home.
joel hanes
Many of us will continue to mask in public settings.
Until public health tracing becomes once again a thing in my state, it me.
And on airplanes and in airports, in fall/winter, for the rest of my life.
And if there’s one thing I’ve really learned over the last year, it’s:
OK, that’s two things.
trollhattan
@Fair Economist:
My CA county has not had a wisp of a third wave since the ginormous holiday wave 2 abated around the start of March. However, there’s a stubborn floor, with hospitalizations and ICU cases not dropping away. This is surely fueled by that 40% of won’t be getting it county residents. Nothing the governor can do about those morons.
Falling Diphthong
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
At the very lest this destroys the tribal marker for an Anti-Vaccier.
This is seriously part of why I am in favor of the move to the fully vaccinated de-masking–let it be a signal “I’m vaccinated.” Which it would be in a normal nation of responsible adults.
Saying “We must stay hunkered down as long as some people are assholes” is not a good strategy, because they will not get tired of being assholes. I’m with Kilgore Trout here–let’s move to a point where we ignore them and no one wants to do a soft focus piece on their “vaccine hesitancy” and it’s just “eh, I’m going to see a play and hit a bar, you rant about the conspiracy to steal the fluid in your knees by yourself.”
Wapiti
We just got an email from our dentist that effective August 1st, they’ll require either proof of vaccination or a negative covid test to be treated. The dentist isn’t fooling around; on my last visit she said that the staff would likely remain masked and face-shielded after the pandemic passes.
Robert Sneddon
We’ve just had a briefing by PM Johnson here in the UK regarding COVID-19 and in particular clusters of infection in parts of the Midlands which are being specifically attributed to the Indian variant of the disease. There are plans to go door-to-door in the areas with the highest prevalence carrying out testing and possible surge vaccination efforts in those areas. We’ve also had an announcement by SAGE:
In other news a plan to repatriate Australian nationals from India on a charter flight ran into difficulties yesterday when the passengers were tested before boarding and half of them were found to be COVID-19 positive and not allowed to fly.
NextInGA
I really, really wish the CDC would talk a bit about their models. Honestly feels like some combination of them being fairly bad at public communications with a decision that a more nuanced message was simply not going to matter. While I’m all for a simple, repeated top-level message (especially back in Jan and Feb) it really feels like instead of reams of “recommendations” posted to cdc.gov they should be at least talking a bit about what modeling is predicting.
zhena gogolia
Thank you, Cheryl. I used to think Leonhardt was smart!
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Never trust anyone outside of Balloon Juice.
polyorchnid octopunch
Regarding what to say about people who bitch about me wearing a mask:
“Fak aff”
marklar
I haven’t read through all of these threads carefully enough to know if somebody has made the same point yet (I did scan them), but I think the CDC is weighing the increased risk of relaxing masking against the benefits of diminishing psychological reactance (i.e., the “you’re not the boss of me” phenomenon).
Many mask and vaccine resistant people are rebelling against CDC guidelines simply because as ‘freedom-loving Americans, we don’t want to be told what to do.” The CDC is taking that rationale away from them. Now if they choose not to get immunized, all they are doing is increasing their own risk. The CDC has removed the ancillary reward of “sticking it to big government.”
I’m willing to bet that the CDC’s modeling suggested that the benefit (in terms of increased immunizations) of removing this puerile motivation outweighs the costs of increased case-loads from their decision. From a population perspective, it makes sense. However, the costs are going to be disproportionately felt by people who are immunocompromised and those who can’t get vaccines.
Falling Diphthong
Okay, I’m going to point this out because there are a lot of thoughtful, reflectful people here:
“Nate Silver and Zeynep Tufekci don’t know better than the CDC. But I do” is a theme woven through this thread.
Also, in the last few weeks I’ve heard a lot of Fox news hosts begging their viewers to go out and mock people in masks. But any follow through doesn’t seem to be flooding the nation’s supermarkets–people who are into that played that game last summer. The only obvious spot (and I don’t think they are doing this because Fox said to last week) is those loons at the Santa Monica middle school, and the middle and high schoolers are quite adept at slinging devastating insults right back at them.
A Ghost to Most
It’s worth it to continue wearing masks, just to piss off the goobers.
Shakti
This morning I got news that my cousin’s uncle died of COVID in India.
Her father is the youngest of 12, but my cousin is an only child. She’s in med school in Texas now, and had an extremely bad reaction to her first dose of Moderna.
Her uncle lived in a joint household with his eldest child, and his grandchildren and they had all contracted COVID and recovered. He didn’t want to go to the first hospital his grandchildren took him too because two of his siblings died there and the second hospital tried to send him home because he tested negative for covid even with his difficulties breathing. They fought to get him admitted and he spent three days in the hospital before dying.
My mother says she’s stopped keeping track of how many people she knows that are ill or dead of covid and says she’s going to continue masking, even though she’s fully vaccinated.
OGLiberal
I don’t care what the percentages are in any country/state/county. How about this….
When you are going out and will be among people you don’t know, wear a fucking mask.
I don’t care if if it’s indoors or outdoors. I don’t care if your mask if the most special medical mask ever or some gaiter you bought online. I don’t care if you got 1or 2 or a thousand shots. Wear a fucking mask. It’s inexpensive. It takes two seconds to put on. You wear shoes? Wear a fucking mask. Ok, maybe some folks don’t care about barefoot people, but most probably don’t want to see penises hanging out in public. Do you cover up your penis? Wear a fucking mask.
When this shit is not longer killing people then maybe not wear a mask. But until then, just put the fucking thing on. It is not a huge or even minor inconvenience. Just put on a fucking mask. Seriously, that should have been the CDC guidance from day one through today but for many Americans, apparently, wearing a mask is the equivalent of being sent to the gulag. Pussies.
sdhays
@zzyzx: As others have mentioned, what irritates me so much about the mask whining is that it’s so fucking easy to do. I don’t like wearing a mask, but it’s cheap and simple and if it’s just indoors in public (which it could have been if we didn’t have a huge contingent of assholes), just do it and get on with your day. I don’t like wearing a coat in winter, but I also don’t like freezing to death, so somehow I get by every winter.
If 90% of the country would have just accepted that wearing a mask was just something we do now, we could have had open schools this last term. And maybe we would have kept our death count closer to original modeling.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Shakti:
My condolences for your uncle
Mayim
@JanieM: I wonder how many teens will want the vaccine to be able to see their friends again and will take an otherwise vaccine-avoidant adult with them.
trollhattan
@Robert Sneddon:
Crikey! ?
randy khan
I am close to 100% confident that the CDC paid no attention to the whiners.
My analysis is that a lot of things have been coming together over the last couple of weeks – news about how well the vaccines work (including against variants and including the extremely low likelihood of vaccinated people infecting other people), the really steep declines in cases and deaths (cases down 50% in the last 4 weeks, 30% in the last 2 weeks), vaccination rates continuing to climb (we probably will hit 60% of the adult population fully vaccinated in about 3 weeks, and the approval for 12-15 year olds will get us another bump), and recent research on the likelihood of transmission in outdoor environments (very low). It’s kind of like the information reached critical mass for action.
lee
My wife and I are fully vaccinated. We still mostly wear masks. We’ve stopped wearing them at the gym . We go at 5am and are 2 of about a dozen or so people in a very large building (think 2 story Walmart)
Our current masks have ‘Vaccinated’ printed on them.
HinTN
@RepubAnon:
That’s certainly far more polite that my inclination, which is to say something along the lines of fuck off, asshole, and then mace them if they approach closer.
Am I angry? Oh hell yes, I’m angry
ETA: Actually, I’m going to ask then first if they are vaccinated. Then decide on the response.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@trollhattan:
Do you come from a land down under?
I feel so sorry for the Australian citizens stranded in India
Mel
@Obvious Russian Troll: I agree. I’m immunosuppressed, and I will be masking indefinitely.
I worry about the safety of retail, bank, and salon employees, amongst others. At least when there were state mandates, they had the recourse of pointing to that to try and defuse ragey anti-maskers, and employers felt on reasonably solid ground making those that refused to mask leave the place of business.
My fear is that even businesses who were doing the right thing before will stop requiring masks in order to avoid the hassle of dealing with newly energized anti-mask idiots. My husband’s job normally requires face to face contact. His employer has been stellar so far about enforcing state and local mask rules and allowing at-risk employees to meet with clients via zoom. What happens when there are no state or local mask mandates to point to?
Then hubby, who is also on immunosuppressive medications, has to meet daily with strangers whom he cannot insist wear masks, and he has to risk his life and mine on taking each stranger’s word as to whether or not they are vaccinated. What other option will people have, but to put themselves and their loved ones at constant risk if they want to keep a roof over their head?
As Cheryl pointed out, we just don’t know if or how well the vaccines will protect immunosuppressed or immunocompromised people. At first thought, that might seem insignificant in the face of the excellent protection that vaccines offer to immunocompetent individuals.
Immunosuppressed people are a fairly large group, though: patients on chemo, patients with autoimmune conditions, asthmatics who use oral or inhaled steroids, organ transplant recipients, people living with hiv, people with genetic immunodeficiency syndromes, etc.
Even for vaccinated, immunocompetent people, there is a risk of being left with long Covid and/or autoimmune disease after a mild infection. Although the vaccines appear to ease long Covid in a small percent of patients who receive the vaccines after the fact, it looks like people who contract Covid after being vaccinated are still at risk of developing long Covid.
My autoimmune issues were triggered years ago by a severe acute illness. Just as happens with long Covid, my immune system went haywire, and it has been 20 years of living hell dealing with the ensuing autoimmune illness. I wouldn’t wish this nightmare on anyone.
The CDC believing that people will follow an “honor system” is almost incomprehensible. To expect the same people who refuse to mask (and knowingly and constantly put others’ lives at risk) now, while mask mandates are in place, to get vaccinated or to suddenly decide to do the right thing and mask up AFTER the requirement to mask is eliminated is ludicrous. It will not work.
Sorry for the rant. I just can’t see this decision ending well, especially for those of us stuck in red states.
So many months, so much sacrifice by so many people, and we throw it away because waiting another month or two is just too annoying for whiney wingnuts…
Betty Cracker
@marklar: I suspect you’re right. I don’t know doodly-squat about the CDC’s process for creating guidance on mask wearing, but since human behavior is a big factor in this public health emergency, I’m pretty sure they consider that.
ETA: My guess is they also weighed the benefit to the folks who have been doing the right thing for a year. It’s not all about caving to whiners; it’s also about rewarding people who took measures to protect themselves and their neighbors since the risk to those people is so low, and also maintaining confidence in their guidance since data on that is coming out.
cckids
This is me as well. I’ll wear one to my job at the grocery store as long as they will allow it; even here in in Seattle/Bellevue there are an increasing number of angry jackasses who won’t wear masks. And old people who won’t wear them properly.
My answer to “why are you still wearing that?” is always “why do you care?” It’s polite enough for those fucking people.
AM in NC
Here in NC our Governor (who has been really pretty good about the COVID pandemic) has just announced today that we are going to be opening everything up to full capacity and no social distancing required, and masks will not be required indoors anymore except on public transport, in prisons, and in hospitals, etc. It’s just the “honor system” everywhere else because unvaccinated people are supposed to still mask. Yeah right. If they are vaccine resistant you know they are mask-averse as well. And also assholes who won’t have a problem lying to be able to shop unmasked.
I own a small chain of retail stores, and this is AWFUL for us. As soon as the new CDC guidance came out this week, we had customers saying they didn’t have to wear masks because they’re vaccinated. Of course we have NO way to know if they are telling the truth, so we were relying on the state’s strictures to be able to keep telling people that they need to mask inside. Now that is gone, and each time a customer comes in without a mask, there’s nothing to point to to say “it’s the requirement”. NC has about 1/2 of our adult population vaccinated, so that’s a whooooooooole lot of unvaccinated people out there potentially spreading COVID. Fortunately our stores are mainly in college towns and blue areas where people generally care about their neighbors and accept science, so they have been masking and vaccinating. And all of our employees got the vaccine as soon as they could, so I’m not as worried about my staff as I was for most of this past year, but it still puts us in the position of being the mask police. Because the people who won’t want to mask in our stores are also the ones most likely not to get vaccinated (and, thus be the most likely to contract and spread COVID).
I know we want to get back to normal. But we can’t do that until many more people are vaccinated. Either give us a vaccine passport that we can demand for entrance to the store, or give us a mask mandate backed by the state – I want my staff and my customers to be safe, and it only takes one douchebag to blow that all up!
Dan B
@Sayne: I’m with the “Neighborhood Epidemiologist”. 95% of people heard some version of: Don’t Wear Masks. 5% heard: Wear Them Indoors If It’s Crowded, Wear Them In Hospitals.
I would have liked the message: Fully vaccinated people are not likely to get seriously ill or catch Covid from other fully vaccinated people.
Stop there.
People are bombarded by information, disinformation, and infotainment. Don’t do nuances. The public is not students who realize the professor will be testing. Covid is the professor – an evil teacher, but is the final test administrator. The CDC needs to be the protector and the watchdog. Even if the watchdog is growling at a fake threat it’s still doing a good job,. Good. Not perfect.
geg6
My friend and former co-worker, Nicole, is in this story and is one of the reasons having been vaccinated is no guarantee that you will be immune to COVID:
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-vaccines-may-not-protect-people-immune-disorders-nih-trial-n1266886?fbclid=IwAR0bcq4ZmSh56brYat89ItjnwHfDTpZ9LBvKFj7Mh-cMzrEjjw5G_byxpiE
Ruckus
Cheryl,
I must be an obscene old fart, my reply has never been this nice…..
Considering how things are going in the liberal hell of LA county and the mask wearing I see outside, there may be something to this besides pure science, where we would probably be wearing a mask everyday, everywhere. I will wear a mask for the foreseeable future, just on the chance that it might protect me. And in this regard I am fully vaccinated, my two weeks went past 10 weeks ago. I wear a seat/shoulder belt when I drive and have, before they became standard/required on cars. I have even installed them in vehicles which didn’t have them, before it was mandatory. Simple things that protect us from harm and make life better are no brainers. I wouldn’t want to see what an airbag deployment is like but I’d bet I’d like it better than having a steering column rammed into/through my chest.
People have a right to be an asshole, I have the right to treat them like one when they do.
Brachiator
It gets so tiresome that people who are not scientists, don’t have much of a relevant science background, and don’t clearly understand the science insist on playacting as scientists.
Dan B
@Anonymous At Work: AIDS went like this. I lost almost 40 friends and ex lovers while every single opinion and action made it clear that people didn’t want to believe science, believed science and every politician wanted to neuter gay men (some did, of course), and they would never give up the pleasures that made life worth living. HIV administered the final exam.
I hoped never again to experience a medical crisis that rocked my faith in humanity.
Fair Economist
I don’t think the CDC had nefarious intent, and from what we know, it probably is basically OK for fully vaccinated people to be never-masked, as far as COVID is concerned (maybe not flu/colds, but that’s another issue). But the messaging seems wrong. I’d have said something like “mask requirements can be removed *for people with proof of vaccination*”. The vaccinated don’t need masks, but the non-vaccinated *do*. The message and suggested plans of action should have supported that.
JimV
I don’t think the communication from the CDC has been good (in contrast to Dr. Rofer’s communications). For one thing, they should spend a little time before announcements considering what the “gotcha” questions are going to be. It seems to me they missed some obvious ones in the latest announcement. Also, enough with the “the science says this, the science says that”. Our observations say there is little evidence of risk so far. They don’t say the risk is zero. “Science can’t say that and never does.” There, I did it myself.
What I’m trying to say is that “science” is provisional and what we think we know today could be wrong tomorrow. Just tell me the evidence, don’t tell me that it’s science. People are making difficult decisions based on data, not obeying the dictates of science.
What I’m not trying to say is that the CDC is wrong about any particular recommendation. It has been over two weeks since I had my second Moderna shot and I still wear a mask outside most of the time and always in public buildings. That’s because my risk aversion (on behalf of the public, I’ll probably be dead in five years anyway) is a little higher than what the CDC may consider normal and also it commemorates a terrible time which shouldn’t be forgotten. Also because it is getting warmer and my glasses don’t fog up as much so it isn’t much of a problem.
In fairness, the CDC may be factoring in economic concerns which don’t apply to me as a retired person with a pension. It’s fine if they are, but say so, don’t blame it on the science.
James E Powell
@Falling Diphthong:
She’s clearly talking about herself and her friends. She also has never driven on a freeway. Rules are for losers. Consideration for others is a weakness.
cckids
Yeah, that stopped here after less than a month. Certain members of the public were just too angry and threatening to us (the employees), and Kroger would not pay for an actual security guard to enforce masking. Several people quit or transferred departments (taking a cut in pay) to avoid having to deal with the assholes. One girl even had an old white guy show her he was carrying a handgun when she asked him to wear a mask. She walked out then & there.
It is difficult to convey the anger and despair being felt by many, many retail employees about the past 18 months. I really, really despise so much of humanity at this point.
New Deal democrat
Here is what I wrote my sibling unit this morning:
Now all the idiots who aren’t vaccinated will take off their masks indoors and there will be no way to check. So there will be another increase in cases and deaths.
The CDC should have announced that the new rule would come into effect “as soon as 75% of all adults, or 70% of the population, is fully vaccinated, whichever comes first.” That would give the idiots an incentive to get vaccinated, instead of an incentive to be irresponsible, which is what the CDC just did instead.
I am going to keep wearing my mask indoors until, at minimum, 70% of all US adults are fully vaccinated.
citizen dave
I don’t get it. My state (indiana) reports (I check every day) 16 COVID deaths, 925 cases, and a 5.2% positivity rate. We’ve had a few “good” days with 5 or 1 deaths, but just a few.
It’s like the CDC just said Fuck It. We’re Done. You all are on your own.
Brachiator
@JimV:
Isn’t the CDC’s job to make policy recommendations based on their evaluations of evidence? This is not the same thing as laying out all the evidence so that every individual can play data analyst and make their own decisions.
We give health departments and the government responsibility for laying out guidelines that people are expected to follow.
And yeah, what we know today might be wrong tomorrow. But so what? We make decisions for what we know today.
Raven
CNN) – An indicted close confidant of Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, has struck a deal with federal prosecutors to greatly reduce his criminal case and plans to help investigators in their sprawling sex crimes investigation.
Baud
@Raven:
Let’s hope it pans out.
Raven
@Ruckus: I have not had one person say a word to me when I mask since this started. There were 9 people on the board yesterday, no masks, no conversation 6about masks or politics. The 60lb wahoo I caught, lots of conversation!
JaneE
I will probably still mask indoors when I am around strangers. Putting on the mask before I open the car door is automatic now. Our county was always more restrictive on health orders than the counties around us, so if they say we can do without masks I will trust their judgement but I may still mask out of habit.
Being fully vaccinated doesn’t mean that I can’t catch it, it just means I am very unlikely to need hospitalization and am very unlikely to die. If someone says they are vaccinated so they don’t have to mask and then catches Covid, the odds of their being hospitalized or dying are what they always were. Chances are they weren’t masking before either. Now that their risk-taking can’t kill me I don’t care if they take that risk.
Barbara
@citizen dave: The CDC has shown itself to be exceptionally poor at communication throughout the pandemic, although it was of course hamstrung by Trump at every turn so that explained some of it. I am not really surprised. Although of course they should maintain their scientific independence, they desperately need a better communications team. Like many very smart people, they have a lot of difficulty of understanding how not smart people interpret health guidance, but especially guidance that relates to health risks.
For instance, if someone reports a finding that consuming three servings of dairy per day is associated with maintaining a healthy weight, a lot of people will interpret that as “eat all the ice cream you want!”
Kent
@Mel: What 2016 taught us is that we live in a world of asswholes and there really isn’t much that can be done about that. I feel for you guys but honestly, there is no fixing the level of asswholerly that we have in this country.
I do actually think dropping the mask and social distancing requirements is going to increase vaccine rates. Because now everyone is responsible for their own safety. Society is no longer going to do it for them. That is going to be a sobering realization for some folks.
But for immunocompromised folks? I don’t think there is any good answer other than figuring out how to organize your life to minimize contact with assholes. I don’t see any other solution.
The fact that we haven’t seen a 4th wave in many of the regions of the country that relaxed mask requirements months ago is probably a good sign.
RobertDSC-Work
(I put this in the wrong thread. )
I will continue to mask up at work for the foreseeable future. I ride public transit. When people eventually come back to my building, I won’t know if they’re vaxed or not. I am but I’m not taking any chances.
MattF
@Raven: And this is the plea agreement.
sdhays
@Baud: I had a flash of fantasy today about a Gaetz trial in 2022 becoming a Mark Foley-like snowball that crushes GQP electoral hopes. His ties to DeSantis aren’t going to help that shithead’s reelection campaign.
It’s a fantasy, I know, but it’s not implausible.
Barbara
@MattF: They must have had him dead to rights. Just blistering.
Kent
@sdhays: He represents the redneck Riviera part of Florida which is something like +40 GOP. Even if he goes down it will just be next MAGA up.
OGLiberal
You know, the guidance from the CDC – or anybody – should just be this:
Wear a fucking mask, period, full stop.
It’s cheap and it is a very minor, minor inconvenience. It has health benefits even outside of COVID, and it will make your fellow humans feel comfortable. It’s ain’t fucking labor camps…it’s a piece of cloth over your face. No, you don’t have to wear it in your house. But when you are in places with people you don’t know? Wear it. “Oh, I’m vaccinated.” Yeah, how the fuck do I know that and even if you say that, you may be lying.
Wear a fucking mask. It is not hard. If you can’t do that then you are a pussy. Tell people that – make them know that not wearing a mask is much bigger pussy move than actually wearing one. Because right now the anti-maskers think they are bad-ass shit. MAGA!
Baud
@sdhays:
?
prostratedragon
@Ruckus: I can say “For reasons of my own” so that it sounds exactly like “Fuck off, asshole.”
Chief Oshkosh
@bbleh: Agreed. I am completely unimpressed with the new head of CDC when it comes to implementation science and human behavior psychology, which are actually fields in which one can obtain actual advanced degrees, and which she should edumcate herself on toot sweet, though it may be too late
ETA: Of course, if she read my mind and did EXACTLY what I want done, then she’d be a genius! ;)
Ukko
What did I miss with Zeynep, why the hate?
Dan B
@lee: I ordered some spice and herb mixes from Penzeys. They’re including a Vaccinated! pin. I haven’t worn pins since the 70’s. Is this the new “normal”?
Nicole
I am feeling pretty comfortable outdoors maskless, but the habit is hard to break. I took the dog out for her afternoon walk, and was ten minutes outside before I realized I was wearing a mask. I must have automatically put it on before I left the apartment. Ha!
I think anti-maskers are going to be assholes no matter what. And Covid is here for the long haul. As has been pointed out, the only infectious disease we managed to totally defeat was smallpox, and probably only because it couldn’t be transmitted by animals. Covid can hop between species; we have no way of vaccinating every mammal on the planet. I think the CDC is recognizing that the vast majority of vaccinated people are, with the data we have now, not in danger of getting seriously ill from Covid, so it’s okay for them to be unmasked in certain indoor situations. But I think they also recognize we’ll never go back to before Covid, so we’re at the point where we’re going to have to start figuring how to manage the risk. But it’s hard, because we’re all so traumatized by what we’ve gone through. Like I said above, masking up before I leave the apartment has reached the point for my brain where I don’t even remember doing it.
My big fear is if we’ll see an upswing in cases in the 5-11 year old cohort.
Cermet
Got into a verbal argument with my girlfriend when she said (outside a store) that she didn’t need a mask to go in (the store requires it) because of the CDC statement. I was not nice about it – pointing out the workers there aren’t paid by the CDC. And she is liberal … just the CDC statement went to her head.
I am still bummed out reading the total daily deaths in the US every day (and of course, I have too.) I simply am appalled by the numbers and that this country is like, (not here of course) – No big deal! The number is frightening and people don’t consider this a running disaster – just can’t get my head around such indifference.
MattF
@Barbara: Popehat says the guilty pleas add up to a mandatory minimum of 12 years.
Dan B
@OGLiberal: Although in the People’s Republic of Seattle it’s unlikely to encounter maskholes there are a smattering of noses hanging out. I noticed that erectile dysfunction is not uncommon as is physical damage from virus loads in dicks (penises, not just human guys).
I fantasize asking them if they’ve heard about permanent penis damage from Covid.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
We just went to our local grocery store, in the nearby very-blue college town. Our first time to go shopping inside a store for a full grocery run (I had been in the store once before about a month ago: dashed in, grabbed five or six produce items near the register, then quick paid and left). It felt very weird but exciting at the same time.
They are still under pretty much unchanged restrictions. Masks, limited numbers inside the store, social distancing, hand wash stations, cashiers behind plexiglass. The only recent change is that a couple of weeks ago they announced you could start bringing your own bags again.
I’m glad they’re still cautious. We knew they would be, which is why we decided to go. Also, my wife is fully immunized, and I’m partial (2nd shot one week ago). Even after I hit full immunization, I will walk out of any place full of unmasked individuals.
Philadelphia city is going to loosen up indoor gatherings pretty soon and I think the state already has. I just don’t know how I feel about restaurants and cafes. I think what I’m going to end up doing is patronizing places that encourage masks, keeping my own mask on unless actually eating or drinking, and looking for places where everybody nearby is doing the same. We’ll see how that goes.
There’s a place called Reading Terminal Market, a very popular indoor marketplace which was always jam packed with people. Always loved that place. I plan to check them out when I start going back into town, but if it’s anything like the old crowds I’ll probably be too phobic to stay.
Baud
Betty Cracker took down her Gaetz thread, I assume not to stomp on the Steve thread. But I hope she puts it back up soon.
MattF
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’ve now shopped at all my local grocery sources with the exception of Trader Joe’s. Everyone now takes Apple Pay.
citizen dave
@Cermet: “I am still bummed out reading the total daily deaths in the US every day (and of course, I have too.) I simply am appalled by the numbers and that this country is like, (not here of course) – No big deal! The number is frightening and people don’t consider this a running disaster – just can’t get my head around such indifference.”
Very well said, makes me feel like I have company with these thoughts. People are still dying every damn day from COVID (as Cheryl’s post points out above).
Mel
@Kent: I’ve largely been isolating for a year and a half. Haven’t been able to see my nieces and nephews, my elderly parent who has Alzheimer’s, my sibling, or any of my friends or my former students.
My big concern is that we will have a wave not just because the mask orders are being dropped willy-nilly, but also because
a. the unvaccinated who were masking before out of fear of social or work related repercussions, or because they wanted to shop at stores that enforced the orders, will now be free to be unmasked anywhere and everywhere.
b. this will absolutely embolden not just the rabid anti-maskers but the anti-vaxxers as well. Based upon the attitudes we have seen so far, they are less likely to take this as an “uh-oh – better get with the program” sign, and far more likely to see it as a win that “proves” that they were right to put off getting vaccinated and that Covid isn’t serious.
c. mask mandates are being lifted in conjunction with crowd limits, venue restrictions (such as the requirement for groups of diners to distance from other groups, etc) in many areas. It’s sending a clear but wrong message that the risk is over. The risk is not over.
Then there is the tricky issue about all the people who are in or arecclose to someone who is in an at-risk categories having to choose between their livelihoods and lives because of this. This was an issue all along, but at least there was social distancing and masking to lessen the risk. This will impact not just “people like” me, but all of the people in our lives as well.
Yes, the healthy vaccinated are significantly less likely to be hospitalized or to die if they contract Covid 19. But what about the healthy vaccinated who have a friend, a co-worker, a loved one, who is still at risk?
The fact that those who refuse to get vaccinated will almost certainly still refuse, but now will be allowed to go unmasked in stores, restaurants, businesses, offices, banks, airports, etc. can’t help but increase the risk of overall transmission, since most areas are nowhere near isolating infections to small, traceable clusters.
So, it isn’t just about people like me. It’s about our families, our neighbors, our friends, who now have to choose whether or not to see us even if we are all vaccinated, if they have grocery shopped, for example, or gone to work in unmasked environments. It’s about whether we can go to work and earn a living or not when there are no Covid safety protocols at all being practiced. It’s about states cutting off unemployment benefits at the same time that they eliminate Covid safety protocol requirements. It’s in part also about how our society views the ill, the less resilient, or the disabled as disposable, or as not a relevant part of the equation.
It’s also about the very real risk of long Covid.
It’s about the risk of variants that evade the vaccine-induced antibodies developing and spreading more easily and quickly, because we are opening up and unmasking before the spread of the current variants are truly under control.
Masking, in conjunction with social distancing and vaccinations has been working. We just needed to have a bit more time to vaccinate, more monitoring put in place, more planning about a controlled, logical step-by-step opening plan, and things likely could have been opened up safely for everyone.
sdhays
@Kent: Yes, but he can still drive disgust with the GQP in general and DeathSantis in particular, especially if the details are as lurid as we’ve been led to expect.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I rescheduled it for 3:45 so as not to bigfoot John. :)
lowtechcyclist
My wife and I are fully vaccinated, and our son (who’s in that 12-15 range) got his first shot today. But I’ll be wearing my mask anytime I’m indoors with strangers until new cases are a rarity in my area. And who knows when I’ll be OK with indoor dining. Maybe later this year, maybe not. We’ll see.
If anyone is bothered by my wearing a mask, they can fuck their feelings.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
FWIW, I think bigfooting for breaking news is kosher.
Only a few minutes left in any event.
Dan B
@Barbara: As a lactose intolerant person these same people will eat all the eggs and mayonnaise they feel like.
Seriously. Many many times I’ve been told that they’re, “Sorry sir, but there are eggs in it.” or mayonnaise in the salad / sandwich. Or “There’s no milk.” but are baffled when I point out that the dish tastes like there’s butter in it. Nicest people but clueless.
“Common knowledge” is a rare commodity.
Nora Lenderbee
@Falling Diphthong: I wear the mask when I think it’s helpful to protect myself and those around me. I could give a shit what signal it sends to the anti crowd.
@A Ghost to Most: I don’t mind sending that signal.
Major Major Major Major
Just remembered how much grief I got in these here comments last Feb/March for suggesting that people should wear masks because they protect both you and those around you, even though the CDC recommended otherwise. Good times.
Anyway, I’m still with Betty, as I said on her thread yesterday. Excited to go to the gym without a mask, watch a movie without a mask. Have already been seeing vaccinated friends and family maskless and dining indoors as well (all mRNA vaccines).
Major Major Major Major
@Barbara:
Better ice cream than a grain-based snack with the same number of calories!
The Moar You Know
This is shit-poor advice and the CDC should be ashamed. This plague is nowhere near even being under control, not anywhere in the country.
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: Right. Only one is worth the calories!
Major Major Major Major
@Barbara: Fat is healthy! Fatphobia was a lie invented by big carbohydrate to sell more carbohydrates.
billcinsd
@Baud: but inside of Balloon Juice is just hot air
catclub
my stupid little neck of the woods is seeing rising casenumbers in all the bad categories. ICU, ventilators, etc.
catclub
@Baud:
It is halal during Eid
Soprano2
I agree with this. I also agree that people should do what they’re comfortable with, and not be bugged about it, no matter what it is. I continue to be baffled at how much fully vaccinated people still seem to believe they’re at high risk of getting really sick with Covid. I think we’ve lived for over a year with the idea that any person we encounter could actually kill us without even knowing it, and it’s going to take awhile to quit feeling that way. I also think it’s going to be hard for some people to accept that Covid is here to stay, and we’re going to have to figure out how to live with it. The ship called “totally squash Covid” sailed in the U.S. in April 2020, I think.
catclub
@Soprano2:
I disagree for many things. One is public health.
The only way drunk driving went down was making people who did it uncomfortable, even when they didn’t kill anybody.
Chief Oshkosh
@Cermet: On one level, it’s simple. If all of those deaths were little blond children, coverage would be non-stop. Absolutely no question.
Chief Oshkosh
@Mel: I directly experienced your a, b, and c yesterday. Right in my face. The CDC is making a BIG bet that the vaccines are essentially perfect and that enough people have them RIGHT NOW, because the assholes I had to work with yesterday absolutely are taking this announcement as you predict: No need to wear a mask, or get vaccinated, or anything at all! See? I told you it was all overblown! Yippee!
sab
@Fair Economist: I am not blaming the CDC. I am blaming the MSM that is not reporting the full CDC message. The press has condensed a couple of paragraphs down into two words “masks off!”. That is not what the CDC said.
VOR
My take on Zeynep Tufekci is clearly different from yours. I don’t recall Tufekci being anti-mask. Tufekci seems to be saying COVID is aerosol, therefore we need to focus on ventilation and not just preventing droplets. Your plexiglass barriers are useless theater. Face shields are less effective than masks because face shields only catch droplets. If Tufekci is taking a victory lap, it’s over CDC’s recent admission indoor aerosol transmission is a serious issue, not mask guidance.
IMHO CDC lost a lot of credibility during COVID. They screwed up with the initial testing kits. The Trump administration clearly knee-capped them so they didn’t contradict the Great Orange One. And the CDC director, Redford, stood there and talked about TFG’s medical genius. It didn’t help because the MAGAts saw the CDC as a political entity hostile to TFG and didn’t listen. After TFG got upset about early comments by CDC personnel about taking COVID seriously, CDC was cautious about contradicting the White House. Media picked up on this and did not promote CDC’s cautious guidance because they knew it would upset the MAGAts to mention science or best practices other than blind loyalty to TFG.
Bill Arnold
@Falling Diphthong:
That Wired peice is excellent; thank you for the link. It’s about some dogma/doctrine related to aerosal transmission of diseases that, according to a serious literature search, the tale well told, resulted from a conflation of some results related to tuberulosus, that needs to get deep into the lungs, with general respiratory infections, some of which such as SARS-CoV-2 can infected via the nasal mucosa/upper respiratory tract. (Also, it uses the term “epistemic tresspasser”. :-)
The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill – All pandemic long, scientists brawled over how the virus spreads. Droplets! No, aerosols! At the heart of the fight was a teensy error with huge consequences. (05.13.2021, Megan Molteni)
AndoChronic
I have some doozies for those who try and hassle me about still wearing a mask. I’m also 6’4 200+ lean pound and can dial it to 11 at the drop of a hat. Try and fuck with me mouthbreath. I dare you!
Mel
@Chief Oshkosh: I am so sorry. It really is already turning bad behaviors worse.
Our veterinarian has had to start literally locking her door during the workday. She has a simple set of procedures in place: clients must wear masks when dropping off their pets, and nobody but staff and pets enter the actual office since cats and ferrets, etc., can also catch Covid 19. She’s trying to protect her staff, he clients, and her patients. When a client arrives, they are to call from their car, and a masked, gloved tech comes out to get their pet. Despite her policies being clearly stated on her door, on her website, and on the phone to every caller, people have begun to barge in, unmasked, and act angry and utterly affronted when she makes them step back outside.
Dan B
@sab: What the MSM is doing now is textbook lessons 1-10 in mass communication.
1. Say what you want to say and not one more message than necessary.
2. The media will pick up any extraneous details whether you want them to or not.
3. If you are questioned answer as though you got the question you wanted. (Refraiming)
4. The bigger the mass market the simpler the message needed.
5. You can include stories that emphasize your main point but be very cautious. The wrong person or missed word can yield message failure.
6. Etc, etc!
The CDC gave out multiple messages: Masks not necessary…if you’ve been vaxed….andvif you’re only around others…who’ve been fully vaxed….but not in crowded….indoors….outside crowds okay….if everyone is vaxed….we aren’t saying how people know who’s vaxed….it’s obvious, right?….oh, and hospitals and businesses and some concerts and some gyms and senior facilities, and did we mention care facilities ? and some….
What will happen when the variants from India explode in low vax states?
James E Powell
@Ukko:
No hate. Just that from the beginning there have been a lot of very smart people arguing that the American people will follow reasonable guidelines and I’ve wondered what world those very smart people live in.
fake irishman
@Falling Diphthong:
Co-sign about keeping our own humility.
A few other things to keep in mind:
My inexpert opinion is that I think the CDC made an OK call based on reasonable evidence. Waiting a few more weeks would have also been a reasonable call.
The seven-day moving average is now about 10/100,000, about half of what it was three weeks ago when the last surge topped out in Michigan and the NE, and is about 85-90 percent down from its January highs. What’s more is the decline seems to be accelerating. Both at its current point and its current trajectory, this is easily the best situation we’ve had nationally since the first surge.
Having said all that, I do not begrudge Cheryl her rant one bit, and will be on guard for a while more.
J R in WV
@prostratedragon:
I am quoting this because it is so well said, so funny… thanks for sharing you wit with all us other jackals!!!
Fuck off, asshole~!!~ Indeed~!!~
way2blue
My transitional mode is to have my mask around my neck* when outside, and if a nearby person has their mask on, I raise mine out of courtesy. Not knowing if they’re unvaccinated or simply extra cautious. And as I pass by they usually nod in thanks. And mask inside in public spaces. Of course.
*I bought a mask that wraps around my neck & head rather than my ears, so I can wear sunglasses & earbuds w/o having stuff fall off/out continually…
sab
@Dan B: Okay. I stand corrected. They did send out a cuomplicated message that was easily garbled.
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
And I should have added — we will be wearing masks for the foreseeable future, regardless of vaccination status. I don’t want the flu or any other airborne disease, or even a tiny little not severe case of Covid-19, no, no, not I ~!!~
If you don’t want to wear a mask, I think that’s both dangerous and stupid! If you don’t want ME to WEAR a mask, that’s wrong, stupid and Fuck you, why would you care that I’m trying to protect you from my TB/FLU/random lung diseases.
H-Bob
@Greg: I prefer an additional $50 COVID co-pay Instead of eliminating governmental funding.
Tazj
@James E Powell: This is what makes me wary, that some people will be more reckless now because they don’t understand what the CDC said or they don’t care. Remember when they told everyone not to travel or visit relatives during the holidays?
I’m not a killjoy either, I’m fully vaccinated so I’ve been out and about this week more than I have been since the pandemic started and I don’t want to keep others from enjoying themselves.
I wish they had waited few more weeks. It’s not like you can’t go out and do things now, you just have to do it with your mask on.
I don’t think that being allowed to go mask less is a major incentive to vaccination to the majority of vaccine hesitant people. One of Buffalo Bills has said that he doesn’t know enough about the vaccine and he wants to make up his own mind, and won’t be bullied into it. He said he doesn’t wear a mask now either. He lives in Texas.
I have a few conservative Christian relatives that feel the same way, they’re not going to be told what to do.
These are just my opinions that thankfully don’t mean anything. I don’t have the knowledge or information that members of the CDC have and I would love to be proven wrong.
Suzanne
@JCJ:
I don’t like wearing it for long stretches. I get some amount of maskne. I still wear it because I recognize that zits are less bad than COVID, but I will be happier when I don’t have to.
Starfish
@VOR: I agree. Painting her as anti-mask loses a lot of the nuance that she has had. She wanted people to wear masks before the CDC recommended it. She also wanted people to mask where it mattered the most (indoors) and was opposed to shaming people for hanging on the beach. Her feeling was that if people do not have things that they can do for respite, they are going to do very stupid things.
SWMBO
I sent this out to friends the other day. I swear to god it wasn’t me. This time.
Edited: (I’m in Florida & our governor Ron DeathSantis, lifted all covid and mask mandates last week) Wendsday evening, I ran out to my local convenience store… No one there was wearing a mask except the cashiers & me. This guy in line behind me, started talking to his buddy (out loud to make sure I heard him) saying, there are so many liberal loons & sheep around here… They think their masks are helping them with the fake pandemic, Blah blah, Plandemic” (remember I’m the only customer with a mask) So I turn around, take a step towards him, lean in a little & politely, but sternly say, “I’m not a liberal loon & I have to wear a mask… because I have Tuberculosis, a very, contagious, deadly, disease” ? You should have seen that little pu**y running away & screaming like a little girl!! ? He’s 20 ft away, at this point ? “GET AWAY FROM ME!!! THIS BITCH HAS A CONTAGIOUS DISEASE & TRYING TO KILL EVERYONE!! While I was trying not to LOL, I said “NOOOO, I’m wearing a mask, I can’t spread it…. Aren’t you glad masks work!!!!” ?? He was still screaming, when I stepped up to the cashier and told him, “I’m just kidding, I don’t have anything. I was just trying to teach that A- hole a lesson” ? He started laughing & said “I know, you come in all the time & I don’t blame you” ? So… if anyone hassles you about wearing a mask, just tell them you have TB, or even bubonic plague… watch the craziness ensue ? Wednesday was Epic!! More fun than I’ve had in quite some time ???