CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Sunday defended the agency’s new guidelines saying that those who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 can safely remove their masks in most circumstances.
Okay, somebody’s gotta get the comments kicked off, and that might be me this morning.
CDC fucked this one up. Saying vaccinated people can go without masks, but having HIPAA block any ability to require verification, makes it pointless.
It’s Josh’s new policy that only hackers are authorized to post on the threads.
I’m old enough to remember when the CDC was internationally respected as one of the best health agencies in existence.
I have no idea what you’re implying.
Shame the CDC didn’t account for unvaccinated Republiqans who want to “own the libs” or bother to observe how real people behave*
*stupidly in most circumstances
Yeah, I’ve been wondering how to start the discussion when there isn’t a “Start Discussion” button.
I cant understand why this is so controversial. Vax’d people are safe. Cant give it, cant get it (w/ very minor exceptions). The only “at risk” folks, at this point, are the idiots who refuse to get stabbed. Life shouldnt revolve around the jackasses who couldnt be arsed to do the right thing. If they get sick…Im done being concerned.
What’s-his-name is making a lot more sense than the CDC director. She made a wrong and idiotic move. And I see they are not gonna acknowledge it. Perhaps they will hire someone to help them with public messaging and to discern the consequences of that messaging.
There is a lot here. First, CDC makes recommendations, they are not (or should not be) policy makers. It is ultimately up to elected officials to set policy. Second, the CDC recommendations state simply that if you are vaccinated, you are at low risk of serious disease or transmitting the disease to others. Whether those around you are vaccinated is pretty much irrelevant, except for public health officials and the next of kin for those who refuse vaccines. Third, no matter that the CDC recommends or the government stipulates, you are responsible for your own health decisions. Just because your governor says you do not have to wear a mask indoors, that does not mean you cannot (or should not). Take some individual responsibility here. Fourth, the press (and others) are making this more complicated than it is. Use common sense. I will continue to mask when I feel appropriate and avoid large gatherings until the overall infection rate drops to something reasonable. I live in a state with a very low vaccine rate, so that may be a while.
Something about figuring out the url. Couple of them have figured it out, like @brian512, and now they’re lording it over the rest of us that they always get first post.
O/T, but I am hardly ever early for a comment thread, so I did not realize what people were talking abut until I tried to post a comment here and found myself confronted by the first poster’s paradox. Josh, if you are going to charge for exclusivity you need to make a better functioning product. Been trying for at least 15 minutes, and the only cure was to close the browser completely and start over.
I have two on topic comments. First, I heard a conservative say something today that I found myself agreeing with – and probably something I have argued the other side of in the past. Basically, he said when everyone who can has been given an opportunity to get the vax, those who continue to choose not to get it must simply be let go. I resent the world that these people are ignorantly creating by not allowing us to get to true herd immunity, but I do not want to stay stuck here in pandemic world either. I do not want their inaction to dictate my actions anymore.
And this is parallel to my other comment – I wonder how many vaccine resistant people are resisting the needle as much as the vaccine. I know two folks personally who have such an uncontrollable fear of needles that they will not volunteer for anything that involves getting stuck. It is a true phobia and therefore totally irrational. I wonder how many people are stuck in this weird place, and how many vaccine resisters would line up tomorrow if there was an oral form.
We are starting to realize that COVID will be with us forever and this reality is definitely the one we need to be planning for.
Now we have science that has really evolved just even in the last week and a paper that was published as recently as Friday that demonstrates that people who are vaccinated are protected, that this vaccine is working in the real world just as it did in the clinical trials, that it’s working against the variants, and that if you get an asymptomatic infection after you’ve had the vaccine, that you really can’t give it to somebody else,” Walensky said.
It does seem to good to be true, doesn’t it? But the science is apparently saying this vaccine is a miracle. In fact, I would put it up with the moon landing and other amazing accomplishments by humans. To call it a home run is to minimize how good these vaccines are.
I am duty bound to believe good science, thus I believe vaccinated people are largely safe in most gatherings. However, nothing is 100% so for people and businesses who want to continue with safety measures, I can understand that. Personally, I expect to continue mask wearing in public places for at least the next few weeks if only out of an abundance of caution.
I’ve not been a fan of the CDC Director since the beginning of this Administration. She’s a poor communicator and has made many questionable judgments. She appears to dance to her own beat and never seems to hear what the Biden Administration is saying. This latest bit of incoherence is her worst step yet. For his part, Biden has decided never to interfere in how the CDC arrives at its decisions, but simply adjusts the Administration’s political messaging to bridge any gap between her statements and their position.
Her statements on teachers not needing to get vaxxed to reopen schools while simultaneously warning about dangerous variants back in late Jan/early Feb were jarringly incoherent. That was cleaned up by Biden who insisted that teachers should be at the front of the line for vaccinations. Biden’s ability to turn her incoherence into political gold helped him as he got most schools reopened at some level.
Her abrupt pause of the J&J vaccine for 1 day to punt it to the FDA’s advisory committee (ACIP) was also incoherent imho. The ACIP bailed her out of a bad decision by refusing to formally extend the pause, then waited a week to affirm J&J’s use with the same guidance that the UK has provided on A/Z (the same UK which has had the most successful vaccination/mitigation program to date along with Israel). Such guidance was available to Walensky at the time she hit the panic button. Biden again cleaned up her mess by reinvigorating a vaccination program that had begun to lag in part b/c J&J was crowding out positive messaging about the need to vaccinate.
Now, Rochelle Walensky has outdone herself. Just 1 day prior in front of Congress she affirmed the CDC’s position that it would not change the mask mandate until we were at or close to Biden’s stated targets. That old position was coherent. Get to a certain % threshold of vaccination and then guidance can change because community spread, incidence will be low.
Now, her incoherent guidance says that the vaccinated can remove their masks, but no one will figure out who is vaxxed and unvaxxed. Business will (and are) rapidly removing mask mandates. Employers now have the hot potato in their lap. Schools, too, aren’t going to require vaccination of eligible kids. They all relied on national health guidance from the CDC to impose distancing and mask mandates to control spread. Now, that’s all gone. With that, every incentive to reach POTUS’ targets among the unvaxxed are sort of out the window.
In essence, the CDC has declared the pandemic over. Families with kids under 12 and those who are immunocompromised will have to fend for themselves.
POTUS will do his best to keep people on track to get vaxxed, but there is a lot of pressure in American society to move from pandemic to endemic where COVID is concerned. The CDC has made a decision to say that those who want to get vaxxed and do so and those that don’t can get sick and get to herd immunity.
This was premature. It really could’ve waited until June 15 when we would’ve been much closer to POTUS’ targets.
Is that so? There isn’t anyone who for medical reasons can’t be vaccinated, there isn’t children under 12 who can’t be vaccinated. There are no persons under the age of 18 who can not be vaccinated because their parents will not allow it.
Members of the party of Personal Responsibility will forego vaccinations because, well just because. I’m with you on wearing a mask when you feel it’s appropriate. Besides it’s going to take awhile for some of us to get used to not masking up.
The best thing about science is that we can change our interpretations and hypotheses as new facts come in. In fact, it is our obligation to do so. If the CDC had not changed their recommendations as new information came available, they would (rightly) be criticized for ignoring the science. It is not a perfect process, but the very nature of that system has allowed us to develop remarkable medicines, including the COVID vaccines. It is complicated by the rapidity with which new data comes in and is communicated, but the process works.
Darned few people legitimately can’t get vaxxed for medical reasons, and those people should continue wearing masks for the time being.
Children under 12 should continue masking up too.
Also should continue to mask.
This isn’t complicated. If you’re vaxxed, the mask isn’t doing anything remotely necessary to protect yourself or others so long as you’re not in crowded conditions.
So is your solution that everyone stay masked…forever? Im not denying that a very small poplulation of otherwise vax-friendly people cannot/will not be vaxxed, but its simply folly to believe the greater population (and restaurant owners, travel agents, etc) will simply maintain the COVID status quo for another year. My attitude is --do the right thing and get stabbed. I cannot worry ad infintum about those who wont. I guess Im just OFTG, and maybe Im just a terrible person for this.