President Joe Biden has consistently violated his own Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) guidelines for coronavirus, particularly related to mask-wearing. The CDC’s most recent guidance says that fully vaccinated individuals do not need to wear masks in most outdoor situations, but Biden continues to do so in public.
CNN’s Jake Tapper took note of this and confronted the president’s senior adviser, Anita Dunn, about this hypocrisy.
“Despite new CDC guidelines saying that fully vaccinated people, like the president, generally do not need to wear masks outdoors...but President Biden doesn’t seem to be following that. He got the shot months ago and he’s still wearing the mask walking outside, in public appearances," Tapper said to Dunn. "Should the president start following these guidelines and stop wearing a mask outdoors, stop wearing a mask indoors when with small groups of other vaccinated Americans, to show the American people there is a benefit to getting the vaccine?"
Jake Tapper confronts WH adviser Anita Dunn on Biden undermining vaccine confidence by not following CDC guidance by wearing a mask outside pic.twitter.com/ooLGSCkWrs
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 2, 2021
Public health officials, including former Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen, have warned that this virtue signaling from government officials could do damage to public confidence in the vaccine’s efficacy.
"...at best, it makes public health measures seem performative rather than science-based. At worst, it calls vaccine efficacy into question," Wen wrote of mask wearing while being fully vaccinated.
Dunn attributed Biden's outdoor mask-wearing to "habit," and maintained that the president takes the CDC guidelines "very seriously," despite constant violations.