Some concern CDC transferring too quick with new COVID masks steering

Some health experts question whether federal officials have been too quick to move too quickly with relaxing mask recommendations to allow people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to remove face coverings from most indoor and outdoor areas. And they suggest that California and local leaders be a little more careful about loosening mask mandates.

Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus in the Infectious Diseases Department at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, said, “There is good science to support changing our policy. On the other hand, I’m surprised they came up with it so soon. I would have loved to have had another month to see the numbers keep falling. “

If California starts allowing fully vaccinated people to be maskless in stores, then who would check if those without a mask were actually vaccinated? Will supermarkets really be interested in checking vaccination cards at the entrance?

“I can’t see any grocery stores that will confirm you have been vaccinated. It’s just not going to happen, ”said Swartzberg.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 1.3 million key food and retail workers, also questioned the CDC’s move.

“While we all share a desire to return to normal mask-free conditions, today’s CDC guidelines are confusing and fail to take into account how this will affect key workers who are often exposed to those who are not vaccinated and who refuse to use masks wear, ”said Marc Perrone, the union’s international president said in a statement. “Elementary workers are still forced to play masked police for buyers. … Should they become the vaccination police now?”

However, grocery stores might choose to simply keep a no-mask and no-service policy.

Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, chair of the epidemiology and biostatistics division at UC San Francisco, tweeted that the science used in the CDC’s recommendation was solid. “But who bears the brunt of implementing the policy?”

Some of the people who are less likely to be vaccinated in America are workers who were too busy working or looking after families to get the vaccine. “Are we failing important workers again?” She asked.

Some fear the CDC’s move will backfire and normalize if they don’t wear masks – with no vaccinations required. This could result in injury to people who are more likely not to be vaccinated, e.g. B. Lower-income residents and blacks and Latinos, some of whom would like to be vaccinated but could not do so because of factors such as feeling they could, lost work due to side effects of the vaccine or inability to get the vaccine from a trusted location relate – Reasons given in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey.

Other experts thought the CDC made a good call and believe the new guidelines will entice people to get vaccinated as long as they can see the benefits of vaccination.

“I know a lot of people say on Twitter that the unvaccinated will just say they’ve been vaxed. Some will, but many will not, they will see the vaccination as something more valuable now and look for it, ”tweeted Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner for the US Food and Drug Administration.

On Friday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, admits that more details are needed to ensure how indoor relaxing mask requirements work realistically in certain environments where it is not clear who is being vaccinated and who doesn’t.

“This was a first step in our guide. And what we really need to do now is look at each of our individual guides for each of these individual attitudes, for example in a school, daycare, or workplace environment: is this the right thing? “Walensky said” Good Morning America “on ABC’s.

In practice, Walensky also said it made sense for different states and counties to issue different orders from national guidelines.

“Many of these decisions have to be made at the jurisdiction level,” said Walensky.

Swartzberg has criticized state officials for reopening the economy twice too quickly in the past year, followed by a spike. The question is whether lifting mask mandates too quickly will result in California “being burned a third time”. It’s probably not likely, but it can’t be ruled out, he said.

Swartzberg said he preferred the view of Governor Gavin Newsom, who earlier this week proposed two different ideas for easing mask mandates in California. His second idea, mentioned on Wednesday, was to remove the exterior masks mandates next month, but possibly keep the interior masks mandates a little longer.

“Instead of taking giant steps like I took today from the CDC, we should take small steps toward the same goal,” said Swartzberg. “We’ll get there eventually. But I think we’ll get there safer if we’re more careful. “

Infectious Disease Specialist at UC San Francisco, Dr. Monica Gandhi, was among the experts calling on the CDC to move faster to lift mask guidelines and was surprised at how quickly federal officials acted Thursday. She welcomed the news and said science supported the new recommendations.

She said the mask lifting instructions for fully vaccinated people will be an incentive for those who may have put off the shot.

“People need incentives now,” said Gandhi. “I think this will help people on the fence get vaccinated.”

A complicated problem for local governments is that the CDC seemed to make its announcement without giving any indication of what was to come, and the result is that state and local officials are faced with the difficult task of addressing the difficult problem solve who is responsible for determining who is vaccinated and who may be exposed as a result.

LA District officials were surprised by the details of the CDC announcement, and it took nine hours for the governor’s office to issue a statement on the new guidelines, in a tweet on Thursday evening saying it was reviewing the guidelines and further, “all encouraging eligible Californians can get vaccinated as we plan to fully open again on June 15th. “

“We still have millions of people who haven’t been vaccinated – who haven’t even got a dose,” said Barbara Ferrer, LA county director of public health, Thursday. “And every day the numbers may be small, but every day there are people who get infected.”

As a result, it is advisable to take your time to ensure that rules are in place to keep people’s safety as safe as possible.

One of the questions officials need to answer is what this would mean for employees working on a site who for some reason may not be able to be vaccinated. According to Ferrer, the solution shouldn’t be to create a higher risk of virus spreading between unvaccinated people as LA County tries to keep the number of cases down and keep opening stores and expanding capacity.

The goal is to come up with rules “so that everyone can be pretty comfortable that we don’t have a lot of exposures that would be unnecessary,” Ferrer said. She added that, at least in the near future, “it may not be possible to lift all restrictions everywhere”.

On CNN, Dr. Leana Wen, a former health commissioner for Baltimore, said the CDC’s move made it easier for people who never got vaccinated or wanted to wear masks to go into stores without a face covering – which increases the risk for people who can’t be vaccinated, e.g. . B. Children who are too young to be vaccinated or immunocompromised people who are not fully protected by the vaccine.

“We are putting them at risk now, and I think we are taking ourselves even further from achieving herd immunity,” Wen said.

Here are the basics of CDC mask guidance:

• Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large and small, without wearing a mask or physically distancing themselves.
• Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated individuals are still asked to wear masks in virtually all indoor and outdoor areas when interacting with people outside their household who may not be vaccinated. (Members of a single household with unvaccinated individuals can be maskless indoors if everyone else is vaccinated.)
• Masks are still required for anyone using public transport, including buses and trains, as well as airports and train stations.
• The rules also apply to hospitals, prisons, facilities for the homeless and other institutional facilities.
• Local and state rules can be stricter and stay in place.
• People who have not been vaccinated should continue to wear masks and get vaccinated immediately.