Guess what? If you are fully vaccinated for COVID-19, you need not wear a mask indoors or outdoors (hopefully) ever again!
At least, that is what the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention sorta says.
On May 13, the CDC issued its long-awaited mask guidance for those who have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19.
According to the new CDC guidance, “If you’ve been fully vaccinated: You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask or staying 6 feet apart.” Gee, really?
And, “You can gather indoors with unvaccinated people of any age from one other household (for example, visiting with relatives who all live together) without masks or staying 6 feet apart, unless any of those people or anyone they live with has an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.”
Wait, I am already confused.
So, we (fully vaccinated Americans) can gather with unvaccinated people indoors sans mask only if that group of people comes from a single household? And only if those people do not live with someone at “increased risk” for severe illness from COVID-19?
What if said person has been vaccinated?
And, furthermore, since when does the CDC determine who we can and cannot “gather with indoors?”
Yet, it gets worse. According the new guidance, “You can gather or conduct activities outdoors without wearing a mask except in certain crowded settings and venues.”
That is strange, considering that Dr. Fauci has been saying wearing a mask outdoors is as useless as a wooden frying pan.
Literally, on the very day the CDC issued its new guidance, Dr. Fauci said, “If you’re vaccinated and outside, put aside your mask.”
However, the non-sensical CDC guidance gets even more perplexing the more you read it.
For instance, CDC says, “You should still protect yourself and others in many situations by wearing a mask that fits snugly against the sides of your face and doesn’t have gaps.”
This contradictory guidance applies to: “indoor public settings” and when “Gathering indoors with unvaccinated people (including children) from more than one other household.”
But, wait. I thought I (a fully vaccinated adult) was forbidden from “gathering indoors with unvaccinated [or vaccinated] people from more than one household.” Apparently not. If I still wear my mask.
Within the latest CDC guidance are all sorts of other illogicalities. However, should we be surprised at this point in the pandemic?
Almost from the beginning of the COVID-19 nightmare, our public health leaders and agencies have been spouting inconsistent guidance.
Don’t wear a mask we were initially told. You must wear a mask was the official line a few weeks later.
Clean all surfaces manically we were told. Just kidding, COVID-19 can’t be transmitted via surfaces we were later told.
The vaccine is a panacea we were instructed to believe. That is, until the vaccine came out, millions of Americans got the shot, and then we were told to act as if we were still at the mercy of the virus.
What gives? What is with the erratic messaging? Perhaps it is all a ruse.
Maybe, just maybe, public health leaders like Dr. Fauci and agencies like the CDC got a taste of unfettered power during the pandemic and they are reluctant to cede that power back where it belongs: to we the people.
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is senior editor at The Heartland Institute.