WASHINGTON (AP) — In a striking move to send the country back toward pre-pandemic life, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday will ease indoor mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to safely stop wearing masks inside in most places, according to a person briefed on the announcement.
The new guidance will still call for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings like buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, but could ease restrictions for reopening workplaces, schools, and other venues — even removing the need for masks or social distancing for those who are fully vaccinated.
The CDC will also no longer recommend that fully vaccinated people wear masks outdoors in crowds. The announcement comes as the CDC and the Biden administration have faced pressure to ease restrictions on fully vaccinated people — people who are two weeks past their last required COVID-19 vaccine dose — in part to highlight the benefits of getting the shot.
The outdoor part makes a lot of sense to me (or I should say the outdoor mandates didn't make much sense), but I have concerns about the indoor part; how do you prove vaccination status? Imo, businesses/indoor public places should still require masks.nsaspook said:
russ_watters said:The outdoor part makes a lot of sense to me (or I should say the outdoor mandates didn't make much sense), but I have concerns about the indoor part; how do you prove vaccination status? Imo, businesses/indoor public places should still require masks.
- Update that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance
- Update that fully vaccinated people can refrain from testing following a known exposure unless they are residents or employees of a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter
I agree. If I am on one side of a screen door, I am perfectly fine. On the other side, I'M GONNA DIE! I'M GONNA DIE!russ_watters said:or I should say the outdoor mandates didn't make much sense
In an office setting you can ask the employees individually. In a supermarket that's impractical of course.russ_watters said:but I have concerns about the indoor part; how do you prove vaccination status?
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavi...ns-in-most-public-settings-governor-says.htmlWashington state lifting mask mandate for fully vaccinated people
People who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will no longer need to wear a mask in most indoor and outdoor settings, Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday.
I love how COVID-19 has made my medical records public business lol.mfb said:In an office setting you can ask the employees individually. In a supermarket that's impractical of course.
Heard of it for travel, but never for day-to-day activities like going to work or shopping. Might be an American thing.mfb said:No one said anything about public.
"You might have to show that you are vaccinated in order to do X" is nothing new either, for e.g. measles this has existed for far longer.
The UK dropped plansMayhem said:Heard of it for travel, but never for day-to-day activities like going to work or shopping. Might be an American thing.
This is because modern medicine has largely eradicated the most dangerous infectious diseases. One of the risks in the modern world is that many people no longer have the experience or knowledge of infectious diseases that can kill. This leads to everything from complacency of the dangers to outright denial that such diseases have been controlled by mass vaccination programs.Mayhem said:Heard of it for travel, but never for day-to-day activities like going to work or shopping.
I'm not fully convinced about this kind of thing. In short, we (general 'we') are selectively boosting the R value for any immunity-bypassing variant.nsaspook said:Fully vaccinated Oregonians can ditch their face masks in most public settings...
Basic childhood vaccinations are mandatory, but there are exemptions (too many, imo). Proof of vaccination may be required by schools. This varies by state(schools are state regulated). Workplaces with high risk such have healthcare and nursing homes may require employees to be vaccinated.Mayhem said:Heard of it for travel, but never for day-to-day activities like going to work or shopping. Might be an American thing.
There is a third, non-crazy issue/option: for eradicated diseases the vaccine carries more risk than the disease. People are bad at weighing such risks and don't trust governments who tend to be more interested in collective risks than individual ones...and optics. Optics are often more important to governments (and businesses) than logic.PeroK said:This is because modern medicine has largely eradicated the most dangerous infectious diseases. One of the risks in the modern world is that many people no longer have the experience or knowledge of infectious diseases that can kill. This leads to everything from complacency of the dangers to outright denial that such diseases have been controlled by mass vaccination programs.
Interesting. A week ago they were still pretty much mandatory in my area. Enforcement is spotty, but largely unnecessary; everyone just wears them. I haven't been anywhere except a pharmacy since the CDC guidance changed, and I'll be interested to see how that changes.PeroK said:Just as a general observation: although masks are still officially mandatory in the UK, they are pretty much optional now. Many people in shops, at the gym and on public transport are not wearing them anymore. There are still signs and announcements but in practice if you don't want to wear a mask you can go largely unchallenged.
The "security" staff at the local supermarket just let people in now, masks or not. For a month or two they were actually, in very un-British fashion, not letting people in without masks - although, I think all you had to do was say you were exempt.
And what was WHO's role in this? If they thought Chinese government was not being forthcoming, why didn't they sound the alarm? Also, governments are responsible for border control, which includes ensuring folks are not bring in communicable diseases from outside. If there was suspicion that a communicable respiratory (SARS-like) illness was being spread in China, then ALL passengers should have been surveilled before departure, or at the very least, everyone one on the planes should be wearing masks.The COVID-19 pandemic that has cost the lives of 3.3 million people around the world was a “preventable disaster” exacerbated by a lack of global coordination and dithering at every point of the outbreak, an independent panel said Wednesday.
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), a team of experts convened by the World Health Organization’s member states last May to review the world’s handling of the crisis, found weak links at every point in the chain of preparedness and response.
“Preparation was inconsistent and underfunded,” the panel said in a report. “The alert system was too slow—and too meek. The World Health Organization was under-powered. The response has exacerbated inequalities. Global political leadership was absent.”
It does if we want the guidance to be followed!mfb said:That discussion started with the idea "if you are vaccinated you can stop wearing a mask in certain places". That doesn't require anyone to show proof of vaccination to anyone.
No one is forced to show anything to anyone with such a rule. Everyone has the option to keep wearing a mask.russ_watters said:It does if we want the guidance to be followed!
Self-service.Astronuc said:COVID-19 pandemic was a ‘preventable disaster,’ made worse by a lack of global coordination and dithering, independent [WHO] panel finds...
And what was WHO's role in this?
You're missing the point/looking at the issue backwards. The point is everyone has the option to stop wearing a mask. And the people who will take that option are likely to be the ones who shouldn't.mfb said:No one is forced to show anything to anyone with such a rule. Everyone has the option to keep wearing a mask.
But if you argue that way, you can say the ones who are mostly likely to take the wrong option would not have worn a mask in the first place, so the change in policy effectively doesn't have to take them into account.russ_watters said:You're missing the point/looking at the issue backwards. The point is everyone has the option to stop wearing a mask. And the people who will take that option are likely to be the ones who shouldn't.
No, the prior policy was that everyone had to wear a mask. That means enforcement doesn't require proof of anything/invasion of privacy. You just station someone at the entrance to the supermarket (restaurant, mall, whatever) to police it. In my experience, this was essentially 100% effective at ensuring compliance. Very few people even tried to violate it and those who did seemed to be looking for Youtube fame (which they usually regretted later). Fewer still violated it successfully.atyy said:But if you argue that way, you can say the ones who are mostly likely to take the wrong option would not have worn a mask in the first place, so the change in policy effectively doesn't have to take them into account.
But at some stage we have to transition to not wearing masks. Presumably that is when everyone has been offered a vaccine? Is the US not there yet?russ_watters said:No, the prior policy was that everyone had to wear a mask. That means enforcement doesn't require proof of anything/invasion of privacy. You just station someone at the entrance to the supermarket (restaurant, mall, whatever) to police it. In my experience, this was essentially 100% effective at ensuring compliance. Very few people even tried to violate it and those who did seemed to be looking for Youtube fame (which they usually regretted later). Fewer still violated it successfully.
A "partial mandate" makes enforcement impossible; it's the same as no mandate.
Exactly. My wife still doesn't feel comfortable going to indoor gatherings of 20 - 50 people where she knows that there are people who refuse to vaccinate. I've tried to explain to her that she is at little risk now that we're vaccinated and that the mask is mostly for the benefit of people who aren't vaccinated.atyy said:But at some stage we have to transition to not wearing masks. Presumably that is when everyone has been offered a vaccine? Is the US not there yet?
We're about 2 weeks from the point where everyone who wants to be fully vaccinated with some urgency can be*. Of course eventually we'll have to get to a mask-free policy (and maybe soon). But that's not really what we're discussing. We're discussing the current policy.atyy said:But at some stage we have to transition to not wearing masks. Presumably that is when everyone has been offered a vaccine? Is the US not there yet?
Also, I'm not sure the vaccines will provide herd immunity even if everyone gets vaccinated, because one can still get an a mild or asymptomatic infection after vaccination, and transmit the virus. The estimates on how much the vaccines reduce transmission range from 50-90%. At the lower end, the vaccine would not provide herd immunity, even if everyone got vaccinated. So I think the vaccine is to protect oneself from serious disease (fortunately they seem very effective for that), but probably not so much for herd immunity.Borg said:Exactly. My wife still doesn't feel comfortable going to indoor gatherings of 20 - 50 people where she knows that there are people who refuse to vaccinate. I've tried to explain to her that she is at little risk now that we're vaccinated and that the mask is mostly for the benefit of people who aren't vaccinated.
Someday in the future, people will mostly not wear masks anymore. We would be there quicker if we had herd immunity because everyone got vaccinated like they should. Unfortunately, that may never happen because a sizeable portion of the population won't vaccinate when there is plenty of opportunity to do so. At what point do you take the attitude with the purposely unvaccinated that we're not going to keep trying to protect you from your own stupidity?
It does enough to prevent a pandemic so that we can lead normal lives. Everyone accepts that eradicating COVID is impractical, but mass vaccination allows us to return to near normality.Borg said:Yes, I agree with all of that. Herd immunity is a bit of a mis-statement because being vaccinated doesn't truly keep you from getting Covid.
Agreed, and because the range is wide/uncertain, and the current caseload still pretty high in the USA, I'd prefer to keep the mask mandates in place a little longer (at least in the USA).atyy said:Also, I'm not sure the vaccines will provide herd immunity even if everyone gets vaccinated, because one can still get an a mild or asymptomatic infection after vaccination, and transmit the virus. The estimates on how much the vaccines reduce transmission range from 50-90%. At the lower end, the vaccine would not provide herd immunity, even if everyone got vaccinated. So I think the vaccine is to protect oneself from serious disease (fortunately they seem very effective for that), but probably not so much for herd immunity.