https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/05/14/cdc-mask-update-decision-confusion/
Key quotes:
More than a dozen physicians interviewed Friday expressed
concern that the decision was premature, coming only days after regulators
cleared a vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds and while so many are still
unprotected. They feared the guidelines could undercut two of the simplest and
most effective tools — masks and physical distancing — for stopping the spread
of a virus still infecting about 35,000 people in the United States every day.
“The guidance shifts all the burden onto individuals to be
‘on their honor’ and choose the appropriate actions when deciding whether to
wear a mask,” said Lisa Maragakis, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “There is no way to know who is
vaccinated and who is not in most scenarios. The likely result is that almost
no one will wear a mask.”
The risk for people who have not yet been vaccinated,
including millions of adolescents and children, “is going to dramatically
increase as the rest of the population abruptly drops masking,” Maragakis
added.
[S]ome of the lowest immunization rates in the country are
in communities without mask mandates, calling into question the effectiveness
of the change in federal guidance as an incentive for the unvaccinated.
On Twitter and other social media, teachers, parents of
children under 12, people with immune-system problems and other vulnerable
groups expressed frustration that the guidance might leave them with less — not
more — freedom. That’s because the CDC’s announcement did not suggest any way
to distinguish the vaccinated from the unvaccinated.
“I feel like everyone just forgot about all the unvaccinated
little kids and their parents,” one parent tweeted.
Another quipped: “CDC Guideline: Don’t have a kid under 12.”
“The CDC, which is supposed to be our steady force based
upon science, is lurching from extreme overcaution to abandoning all caution,”
said Lawrence O. Gostin, a health law professor at Georgetown University Law
Center. “And this all happened in a matter of weeks when the science really
hasn’t changed.”
Gostin also cast doubt on the notion that the move would
spur more people to get vaccinated.
“There’s zero behavioral evidence that a move like this would encourage people to be vaccinated,” he said. “It’s much more likely to encourage people to take their mask off.”
