Is there something wrong with the CDC guidance on mask wearing?

What is wrong with it, is that because you do not need proof of vaccination, you will have all the unvaccinated anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers pretending to be vaccinated.
In addition to that, a lot of them will buy/print fake vaccination cards, just like they did with their fake mask exemptions.

The honour system requires people to have honour. And they do not have any honour.

“My question is: should vaccinated, maskless people worry at all about an unvaccinated person possibly infecting a vaccinated person?”

Unvaccinated masked people should worry about being infected by unmasked unvaccinated honourless K’Pekts who are pretending to be vaccinated.

I agree with @ragingloli .

And everyone should be worried about how many more people than necessary will continue to die, be hospitalized, and/or have life-altering symptoms due to fools causing more infections. While vaccinated people may be unlikely to suffer serious effects themselves, they may end up carrying it to others, though the maskless unvaccinated fools are the main ones to worry about, as hazards to themselves and others.

One of the scariest things about the idiocy is that the longer people continue to be infected, the greater the likelihood that the disease will mutate into something worse and/or something that the vaccinations won’t protect against.

I would be interested to hear your view, @crazyguy , on the question you asked. I’m sure you have an opinion.

It doesn’t matter. These are local rules in a global pandemic. And we’ve decided to not fight this global pandemic at all, and guarantee that it continue to mutate. We’ve decided to live (or die) with this indefinitely. So much of our local (US) guidance is cute, but mostly performative.

A few problems, but I’m not upset about it. I was already unmasked with my vaccinated friends. The CDC announcement doesn’t change much of anything for me.

People think CDC guidance is the same as an order or requirements a business has for wearing masks. It’s not.

Keep in mind, businesses tend to follow CDC advice whether it makes sense or not. I was writing my supermarket chain for weeks at the beginning of the pandemic to put in mask wearing rules. Their reply was a pat “we follow CDC guidance” for a few weeks. Then I hit someone who found my idea interesting to sell masks with their logo and provide them for employees. I mentioned in my message that there were lots of seamstresses and tailors out of work because no one was shopping for clothes back then. Eventually, that store did mask up and sell masks.

The biggest problem is people who followed mask orders and mask rules in stores, but who never believed masks really helped nor worried about COVID, and who are not vaccinated, will now unmask and not feel bad about it and suffer no shame. Now they blend right in with the vaccinated people if they don’t wear a mask.

In another two months probably it will be safer, because we will likely be over 50% vaccinated most places. As it is now we will likely still get super-spreaders and surges and hospitals dealing with full ICUs in pockets around the country. Some of that might never completely go away, but the outbreaks won’t grow for weeks like before in most cases.

Where I live I’m fine if the CDC announcement results in no masks if they keep lower occupancy indoors like we have it now in the theater and activities. We are over 70% vaccinated and in most cases I can distance if I feel unsure about someone. I need to go to Tennessee in a few weeks, and there I wish more people wore masks and that state does not seem to be very vaccinated.

I hope retail businesses only allow vaccinated people to go maskless. I’m all for letting their vaccinated staff shed the mask. I did a Q about that.

It’s the best we can do while living among Trumpanzees.

Yes, they’ll lie, but we will get some amusing phone videos of them flipping out in public like the toddlers they are.

And your point is what ?

The guidelines have have been changing throughout this horrible pandemic!

@ragingloli What you don’t address is the fact that whenever an n goes maskless, s/he risks catching covid; so what incentive would they have? And, if I trust the vaccine, how exactly do they pose a risk to me?

@Zaku they may end up carrying it to others, though the maskless unvaccinated fools are the main ones to worry about, as hazards to themselves and others. Correct me if I am wrong; but I thought the change in CDC guidance was caused by a study that found vaccinated people are little or no risk to anybody else.

The maskless unvaccinated fools are really no risk to vaccinated people if you truly believe in the science.

@elbanditoroso You know me well, friend. Of course, I have an opinion. My opinion is better late than never.

@product I’ll start with your last sentence: We’ve decided to live (or die) with this indefinitely. So much of our local (US) guidance is cute, but mostly performative. Obviously, you belong to the indefinite mask-wearing group, science be damned. I am not sure how the word performative fits in the last sentence.

Your middle sentence is easier to decipher: And we’ve decided to not fight this global pandemic at all, and guarantee that it continue to mutate. I disagree with you because the CDC director, under a Democratic President issued the guidance based on her understanding of the science.

Of course, we here follow the science only when it suits our purposes.

@JLeslie I only wore a mask when it was absolutely required – in the stores and the post office and on the plane to and from Kauai. So I feel you. However, now I can give up the mask in some of those places also. Not right away, mind you, but hopefully soon.

@crazyguy “My question is: should vaccinated, maskless people worry at all about an unvaccinated person possibly infecting a vaccinated person?”

This question is a red herring. We all know that the risk of a vaccinated person with a normal immune system getting infected is very low. But the real worry has always been about people who refuse to get the vaccine and immunocompromised people who either cannot get vaccinated or who will not get the full effect of the vaccine. These are the people who we protect by vaccinating as many people as possible as quickly as possible (worldwide) and by wearing masks in the meantime if we are not yet vaccinated.

There is some danger in unvaccinated people infecting the vaccinated as the vaccine isn’t 100% effective. But that’s not the problem, the real danger lies in the unvaccinated infecting each other and keeping case rates high, hospitals under pressure and increasing the likelihood of the virus mutating into something more dangerous. We should all be worried about that.

@crazyguy: “Obviously, you belong to the indefinite mask-wearing group, science be damned. I am not sure how the word performative fits in the last sentence.”

I am not playing the “Republicans are going to kill us with their fear of masks” shit anymore. The whole argument is absurd. If there was any interest in stopping the pandemic, our response to this would look nothing like it does now.

The localized approach is really just performative in that we can all feel better pretending like we’re doing something to end this pandemic, when really we’re all just pretending.

Sure, Republicans’ fragility and fear of face coverings means that we’ll never see an end to the pandemic. But we have all decided to keep the pandemic with us indefinitely anyway. So, disagreements about mask-wearing will distract from the fact that we have all agreed to unmask and not vaccinate most of the planet. And since this is not a virus that has any interest in respecting the borders of a single country, any high-horse bullshit about masks in a particular state or the US makes for cute theater and might make people feel better about themselves. But that’s all it is.

Is this easier for you to understand, Skippy?

@crazyguy
“What you don’t address is the fact that whenever an n goes maskless, s/he risks catching covid”
You wearing a mask protects others from you. That is the whole point of them. That is why surgeons wear them. To protect the patient from the surgeon.

“and, if I trust the vaccine, how exactly do they pose a risk to me?”
And it always comes down to this, does it not?
This base, shortsighted egoism, that supersedes any and all other considerations. People could by dropping like flies left and right, but as long as you are unaffected, you would happily prance in the street amid the corpses.

@ragingloli Nice try at deflection. However, let me repeat my points. If you can answer them directly, please do.

1. I believe the concern is that unvaccinated people will jump on the bandwagon and ditch their masks.
2. If ALL of the unvaccinated people in ALL gatherings did that, it is possible that they could ALL end up with COVID.
3. However, since more than half the people in this country are Democrats, you would think that scenario 2 is impossible. Therefore let us postulate that ONLY 40% of the unvaccinated people attend a gathering without masks. If one of them is a covid spreader, some of the unvaccinated, maskless people could catch covid.

ALL that is required for this to happen is a person who may have been exposed to covid goes to an event maskless and the same event has a lot of people who hate masks enough to take a huge chance. If some of these people catch covid, whose fault is it?

Addressing your first jab at me, surgeons wear surgical masks to protect their patients from any and all airborne diseases, known or not. If that is your justification for continuing to wear masks, then you should always wear them!

I had my second Pfizer stop over a month ago.
Yesterday I had my eyes examined. I told them that I’m fully vaccinated yet they made me wear a P90 mask AND they put tape around the edges of my mask.
Looks like it doesn’t matter what the CDC says and it doesn’t matter what the science says. People are going to do what powerful political pressure dictate.

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Again, masks are ineffective in protecting the wearer from infection.
They are effective in preventing a mask wearing infected person from infecting others.
An unmasked infected person risks infecting others, regardless of whether the potential victims wear masks or not.

@product If there was any interest in stopping the pandemic, our response to this would look nothing like it does now. Please explain, O Wise One, how we could stop the pandemic?

As you may have notice, the number of cases in this country has declined by more than 60% from the recent peak on April 9. See
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=covid+cases+today&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

The number of new cases on April 9 was over 80,000, now it is under 30,000. If you look a little further back, the all-time peak was reached on January 8. The number of new cases recorded on that day was over 300,000!

Without any interest in stopping the pandemic, we have dropped the number of new cases by over 90% in a little over 4 months. WOW!

In my humble opinion, the only way to end this epidemic in the US is to vaccinate the entire population. The only way to vaccinate people who have already decided to never take the vaccine is by showing them the benefits of getting vaccinated. (THE CARROT). The stick will never work.

@ragingloli 3. YES. But vaccination is.

An unmasked infected person risks infecting others, regardless of whether the potential victims wear masks or not. Correct. However, an unmasked vaccinated person has almost a zero chance of being infected.

@crazyguy – This is a global pandemic. If we were able to vaccinate 100% of the US, we’d still be living with the pandemic indefinitely. Either we attack a global pandemic globally, or we don’t.

@Call_Me_Jay Why are you still blaming this on Trump? Really, hard to believe the anti-Trump psychosis still running amuk.

Since January, the Trump supporters were largely aware of the dangers but did not think it would be a problem here in the states, while the left largely mocked and ridiculed and said Trump was deflecting from impeachment issues—a whole ‘nother can of maggots from the Left during the time of the pandemic.

In March, the Left started coming on board and blaming Trump for the pandemic—but at least they stopped dancing in the streets of Chinatown and calling the Pandemic a racist thing.

For about a year now, there have been people of ALL political persuasions with strong opinions about vaccines, but the Left was distinctively anti-vaccine until Biden was declared winner in November—and when Biden’s failures were beginning, viola! Deflection by saying the masks were unnecessary for vaccinated persons. Deflection?

I will continue to take precautions by wearing masks in public and washing my hands. I have had the vaccinations and carry the card with me if ever needed. But this sudden change in the supposed ‘science’ is ridiculously premature and dangerous—and very political.

@crazyguy “they may end up carrying it to others, though the maskless unvaccinated fools are the main ones to worry about, as hazards to themselves and others.” Correct me if I am wrong; but I thought the change in CDC guidance was caused by a study that found vaccinated people are little or no risk to anybody else.
– Yes, there is little risk to or from vaccinated people, but there is still some risk. The guideline could add little risk if only vaccinated people stopped wearing masks. But if the guideline is misused by many unvaccinated people as an opportunity to lie and not wear masks in public, especially if they are making little/no effort to avoid possible contaminating others, that will multiply what risks there are from all possible scenarios. So, with a significant group of people exploiting the rule changes, we’ll get a significant increase in infections (and deaths, permanent effects, etc) of unvaccinated people.

The maskless unvaccinated fools are really no risk to vaccinated people if you truly believe in the science.
– If you also pay attention to detail, then you appreciate that it’s not “no risk” but “little risk”.
– And if you understand the science, you know that the potentially disastrous danger is that everything the increases the number and duration of COVID-19 infections, increases the chances of mutations which may be worse and/or resistant to the current vaccines.
– And if you care about people other than yourself, then you care about the unvaccinated people dying and suffering, and the impacts on our health care system and people with other symptoms, and other people dying due to reduced resources or access to health care, etc.

Now that we’re used to masks and precautions, this seems to be a very dumb time to quit. I’d say keep wearing them until infection rates are virtually zero,

I DO think, however, that vaccinated persons should feel more free to eat at restaurants and go maskless in more private or sequestered settings.

@Yellowdog If the mask mandates are lifted, I have no problem with some people continuing to wear masks.

Unlike you and many others, I never got used to wearing masks. Even on the flight back from Hawaii, I had to push aside the mask in order to take a full breath. However, whenever I see a Biden wannabe, who I know to be fully vaccinated, wearing a mask outdoors among fully vaccinated people, I cannot resist asking why.

@Zaku If the risk were of the order of 5%, as indicated by the Phase 3 studies, I would agree with you. However, the risk in the real world is much, much lower. The numbers I hang my hat on are the number of breakthrough infections. Here is an excerpt from

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/past-breakthrough-data.html

COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough infections reported to CDC as of April 26
As of April 26, 2021, more than 95 million people in the United States had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. During the same time, CDC received reports of vaccine breakthrough infections from 46 U.S. states and territories.

Total number of vaccine breakthrough infections reported to CDC
Total number of vaccine breakthrough infections reported to CDC 9,245
Females 5,827 (63%)
People aged ≥60 years 4,245 (45%)
Asymptomatic infections 2,525 (27%)
Hospitalizations* 835 (9%)
Deaths† 132 (1%)

Based on the above numbers I estimate my chance of being infected is 9,245/95 million = .000097. I willingly accept that risk.

Your math amazes me, not in a good way but it is amazing.

I completely agree with @Yellowdog’s statement, why not just wait a little longer. I hope a lot of businesses keep their mask policies in place another month or so. I hope for international travel we keep precautions in place. The reason for the move by the CDC I think partly is because QAnon type people saw it as an excuse to not get vaccinated if nothing is changing.

Using statistics about decreases in cases is cherry picking numbers from a very high point to current numbers. Numbers went up and back down even without the vaccine, because when cases surged the community knew and acted accordingly. People became more cautious and stopped their riskier behaviors.

@crazyguy Did Hawaii have any rules for quarantine for unvaccinated people traveling there? That state had been very strict, I don’t know what their rules are now.

@JLeslie: Hawaii restrictions for travelers: https://health.hawaii.gov/coronavirusdisease2019/travel/travelers-returning-to-hawaii/

@crazyguy Mhmm, but I am interested in not being incidentally the cause of infecting others. If I am in public, and a contagious unvaccinated person isn’t wearing a mask and being careless near vaccinated people, the vaccinated people can end up endangering other people even without getting infected. My point is that lying unvaccinated people not wearing masks and not being careful may tend to infect others. Even if the vaccinated people are in very little danger, they may still transport the disease to others just by being in contact with people behaving dangerously and pretending to be vaccinated.

@crazyguy It’s not all about you, or me. Our decisions effect the progress of the virus in society as whole. Believing you are personally safe can lead to irresponsible behaviour which in turn causes illness and death.

@flutherother Our decisions effect the progress of the virus in society as whole. I do not know how to calculate the greater good. If vaccinated people ditching their masks leads to a few more people getting vaccinated, is that better for society as a whole?

@Zaku In the land of the 4-way stop (the most honor-dependent traffic law there is), we think people will risk their lives just to go maskless? And please provide a cite for your contention that Even if the vaccinated people are in very little danger, they may still transport the disease to others just by being in contact with people behaving dangerously and pretending to be vaccinated.

@JLeslie Please define “wait a little longer”. The vaunted CDC is just now catching up to where I have been for months; and now you tell me to wait a little longer!

The reason for the move by the CDC I think partly is because QAnon type people saw it as an excuse to not get vaccinated if nothing is changing. I think it is human nature to postpone anything which offers no rewards and has a small but measurable penalty.

Using statistics about decreases in cases is cherry picking numbers from a very high point to current numbers. That is not what I did.

On a more pleasant note, let me tell you about the silly Hawaii restrictions.

1. Whether you are vaccinated or not makes no difference, unless you obtained your vaccination in Hawaii.
2. You have to take a PCR test no more than 72 hours before your flight. And obtain a negative result before you board your flight.
3. If you don’t, you have to self-quarantine for 10 days!

In our case, our flight was scheduled for Tuesday May 11. We took a PCR test at Kaiser at 5 pm on Saturday May 8. We were told the results would appear in 24–48 hours, but there were no guarantees. We got the results on Sunday morning.

However, because I forgot my wallet at home, we missed our flight on Tuesday. Fortunately we were able to reschedule it for Wednesday. BUT our negative test result was now no good! So, we went for another test on Tuesday with about a 5% chance of the results being available in time. Fortunately, they came in on Wednesday morning!

@Yellowdog I am certainly at a loss as to why the Dems (and most posters on Fluther) have done a 180 on the vaccines. Could it be that the Dems see their narrow House and Senate majorities needing another assist from covid?

@gondwanalon When I went for a covid test at Kaiser (the same place I got my second Moderna shot) they had me mask up right until the swab was taken!

@crazyguy So many people I know have crazy stories flying during this covid time. I can’t believe you forgot your wallet! LOL. Makes for a good story.

I have been in CDC mode for weeks also, and in fact as you know, I have felt for months that vaccinated people can be together no mask. I am not talking about what makes sense, I am talking about dealing with the masses and what makes sense for public policy knowing some people are irrational.

Doesn’t matter, it’s done, I am not angry about the CDC announcement. I am more annoyed with Democrats going batshit crazy when my governor did an executive order a few weeks ago stopping all government level mask orders in the state (some counties and cities had mask orders all along). So, some Democrats have a hissy fit on social media and parts of national media and then the CDC a week later basically gives a rubber stamp to not needing mask orders for everyone. DeSantis will obviously be able to use that to his advantage.

I didn’t define wait a little longer in my last answer. I would have preferred 50% vaccinated in most states at least one shot and getting past Memorial Day without a big surge in cases.

Then, cherry pick some cities that are very vaccinated and had little to no surge in cases over the holiday and help promote vaccination.

@crazyguy It would be impossible to enforce, but no one should travel by plane without being vaccinated and / or immune due to antibodies—unless they are willing to wear a mask!

Some masks are ,more comfortable than others, and I agree that maybe restrictions should be relaxed on an airplane. But unless someone is immune due to antibodies, such as having had the virus already—or has been inoculated, they should wear a mask.

I agree that Covid restrictions may be highly beyond the actual danger thereof—but the fact remains, that infection is still occurring. And who wants to undo all or any of the progress that has been made?

@JLeslie I know you no longer wear a mask in small groups of vaccinated people. The new CDC guideline says you don’t ever need to wear a mask, unless it is absolutely required. That is the mode I have been operating in ever since the CDC results on number of breakthrough cases were released.

Thanks for rubbing in the fact that I forgot my wallet!

I am delighted with the CDC announcement. My only concern was that it took so long!

As far as Democrats go, they have just proved that what they call science is things that promote their election chances!

About “a little longer”. The CDC vaccine data tracker shows that at least 60% of adults have at least one shot. So would you say we already met your yardstick?

@Yellowdog I agree that travel by plane or bus or cruise ship is extremely hazardous to an unvaccinated person. Some level of infection (I believe we are at the lowest level nationally since March 2020) is probably inevitable. Even if 90% of the population had antibodies, we may still get some cases.

@crazyguy What’s a small group?

I’m unmasked with 50 people when I teach zumba. Some of them probably are not vaccinated. Breathing heavy. We had a 14 person outbreak in a class just before Christmas. That was before the vaccines, so I was not there.

I’m unmasked outside with 300+ people listening to a live band and many of us dancing at least part of the time.

I went to a pool party the other day with 40 women and we aren’t distanced, we were outside though.

I’ll probably start going to in person meetings again instead of always on zoom. The meetings so far have been 16 to 100 people, depending on room size. Zoom is just so damned convenient. They’re booking me to give a presentation at one, so then I’ll have to go.

@JLeslie You will have to ask the CDC.

@crazyguy “In the land of the 4-way stop (the most honor-dependent traffic law there is), we think people will risk their lives just to go maskless?”
– I think there seem to be a depressing number of people who have been misled to believe that they are not in real danger, and who seem to think that flaunting mask rules is the thing to do, yes. Worse, they don’t seem to have come up that idea by themselves, but by listening to dumb selfish media and political sources which specialize in saying stupid things to dumb people.

“And please provide a cite for your contention that Even if the vaccinated people are in very little danger, they may still transport the disease to others just by being in contact with people behaving dangerously and pretending to be vaccinated.”
– “People can be infected with SARS-CoV-2 through contact with surfaces. [...] In most situations, cleaning surfaces using soap or detergent, and not disinfecting, is enough to reduce risk. Disinfection is recommended in indoor community settings where there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 within the last 24 hours. The risk of fomite transmission can be reduced by wearing masks consistently and correctly, practicing hand hygiene, cleaning, and taking other measures to maintain healthy facilities.” – https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-and-research/surface-transmission.html
– Considering above, an infected person producing infected respiratory droplets in a shopping or dining environment and touching things may deposit them on surfaces and objects, including other customers, who could in turn be touched by other people. So a vaccinated person in public who may end up transporting virus from a sick person to an unvaccinated person.
– “cite” is a verb

@Zaku Thanks for your comments.

First of all, cite can be used (informally of course) instead of citation:

“cite
(informal) A citation.
Synonyms:
passage, extract, excerpt, reading, piece, quotation, section, text, paragraph, sentence, verse, citation, part, portion, quote, clause, fragment, selection, snippet, canto, line, phrase, stanza, article, bit, chapter, episode, segment, clip, reference, saying, pericope, cutting, scene, clipping, allusion, mention, note, notation, gobbet, illustration, source, example, quoting, division, act, component, subsection, instalment, installment … more_”

This is taken from https://www.wordhippo.com/what-is/the-noun-for/cite.html

Now to the substance of your post.

The question was about masks!

@crazyguy Oh, was the question about masks? Exclamation point?

What is your major mental malfunction?