Thread by @celinegounder

1/ CDC's new mask guidance:
Fully vaxx’d do not need to mask.
EXCEPTIONS:
- Healthcare and long-term care facilities
- Travel by bus, plane, train, public transportation
- Transportation hubs
- Prisons, jails, homeless shelter
- If you have symptoms? Mask & test.
Some thoughts…

2/ The science shows that:
- VACCINATED people are PROTECTED
- UNVACCINATED people are at RISK
Cases are down by 1/3 in the last 2 weeks.
The risk of vaxx’d persons transmitting to others is very low.
HOWEVER...

3/ Local rates of community transmission remain high in many parts of the country:
covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…

4/ Local rates of vaccination coverage vary across the country. Note that the SE and Rocky Mountain states in lighter green. covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tra…

5/ The CDC should have recommended that fully vaccinated people could go without masks indoors be dropped IF:
- local rates of community transmission are LOW
- and local rates of vaccination are HIGH
They should have clearly set a FLOOR for the country.

6/ The CDC’s advice is NOT tailored for different regions.
- It does NOT OVERRIDE local public health or workplace rules.
- Few local health depts will have stomach to say that people still have to mask based on local circumstances.
- Businesses don't want to police customers.

7/ What does this mean for communities of color, which have been hit hardest during the pandemic?
- 40% of white, 27% of Blacks, and 29% of Latinx adults in the U.S. have been vaccinated.
- Would the CDC have changed its guidance if only 27% of ALL Americans had been vaxx'd?

8/ Sure, unvaxx’d people can keep wearing masks, but in so doing:
- What do they reveal about their health status?
- Will they be stigmatized or under social pressure to shed the mask even if they would prefer to wear one to protect their health?

9/ And yes, the risk of shedding masks is greatest for the unvaxx’d. So if they infect one another, who cares, right?
WRONG.
Ongoing transmission➡️viral mutation ➡️new variants
- more infectious
- more virulent➡️more severe disease
- immune-evading (bad for vaxx’d persons, too)

10/ Some people sick with COVID will end up in hospital. If have:
- private insurance: cost spread across other members of that plan, e.g. higher insurance premiums
- Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE: cost passed on to taxpayers
- no insurance: hospital eats cost & passes on to others