Originally Posted by
hwin708
Agreed.
The CDC has been facing a lot of pushback - particularly FROM anti-maskers and vaccine-deniers - who say that if the vaccines really work, we wouldn't still have these restrictions. When the truth is that we continue to have these restrictions because the vaccines DO work and not enough people are getting them.
At a certain point, I think the CDC's job is to be honest about the science. They knew the vaccines were incredibly effective. Every day, more studies come out proving that. What they did not know, for certain, was how effective the vaccines were at preventing asymptomatic spread. And the recent studies show that they are, like vaccines typically are, extremely effective in that regard too. A vaccinated person who still gets infected with COVID is likely to have such a low viral load that they cannot spread the disease to others.
It is the CDC's job to make the recommendations based on what the science shows, not how radical state politicians will use this to appeal to a rabid anti-mask base. The CDC is being honest with the science when they say that vaccinated people should be very safe, both for themselves and others around them, without a mask. I think they delayed as long as they could specifically because of those more political issues, and the concerns that the anti-vaxxers would lead to another outbreak of a vaccine-resistant variant. But now the studies are showing that the vaccines are EXTREMELY effective in protecting against the variants as well. At a certain point, the CDC has to deal in the science, not in trying to control a science-resistant political party.
Even before this, many states have loosened their mask mandates. Most states were offering little enforcement of their mask mandates. The anti-maskers were flouting the rules already. This really does not change much for those people.
What I do think this does is offers another strong defense of the effectiveness of the vaccines, and hopefully offers some appeal to people who were still holding out on getting the vaccine. I have been volunteering with vaccine distribution since the very start, and like pretty much everywhere else, we now have way more supply than demand. We went from events vaccinating hundreds to canvassing the streets, trying to get 20 people that day. This past week, we had our most successful vaccination event in ages, with roughly 150 vaccinated. Some of that was landing in just the right community. But we were definitely getting feedback from this population that they didn't want to get the vaccine, but they knew they needed to just get it over with. Like they had accepted this was something they just had to do, like any other distasteful necessary task. This isn't a population that strictly follows the news, but I do think the messaging on vaccine effectiveness is spreading to some of the hesitant. By which I mean hesitant, not crazy conspiracy Gates-chip crowd.
I know this still leaves our youngest at risk, and it is scary. But I am also not sure, based on the science, that it puts them MORE at risk. At this point, given that they have to wait for vaccine approval, what seems best for them would be anything and everything that convinces more adults to get vaccinated. And I personally think this helps.
I have no idea where people would get the idea to tie this to conspiracies about the pipelines, but a quick glance at the news would tell you that only the worst PR director in history would think that wouldn't still get ample news coverage. Because it absolutely did, enough to freak people out into gas hoarding, which then led to the very gas shortage we could have easily avoided.