After a carefree summer of COVID-freedoms, the CDC has delivered a stark message to much of America: It’s time to put the masks back on!
Top News Today
Thanks to the powerful Delta Variant and tens of thousands of stubborn Americans who simply refuse to get vaccinated, the previous policy that permitted those who are fully vaccinated to go maskless in public has changed. Now, with the coronavirus surging once again, the CDC says it’s necessary for everyone in certain hot-spot states — regardless if they’ve been vaccinated or not — to put their masks back on whenever indoors.
The hot-spot states where vaccines are low and COVID is running rampant again include Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, and other Republican strongholds (where Donald Trump fanatics and other Republican voters have been told to ignore the virus and skip the vaccine). Residents of these states have gone unmasked and unvaccinated, but traveled for enjoyment throughout the summer, putting the rest of the country at risk. Only the northeast, the upper midwest, and portions of the mountain states have kept COVID cases low and vaccines high.
DO YOU NEED TO WEAR A MASK? CHECK THIS INTERACTIVE MAP
Yes, taking off the masks, beating the virus, and going back to normal appears to have been too much too soon — and far too good to be true. Now, as fall approaches, putting the masks back on and returning to other safety protocols are becoming all but inevitable from coast to coast.
As tech employees prepare to return to the office this fall, Apple has announced it will require masks on all of its employees. Facebook, Google, and Netflix will require all of their in-office employees to be vaccinated. Twitter (which only reopened operations 2 weeks ago) has opted to completely shut down its San Francisco headquarters and New York office effective immediately and has postponed plans to reopen other offices until the health situation improves.
In California, health officials have called for all residents throughout the state to wear masks indoors, regardless of immunization status.
Last week, Atlanta Mayor Kecia Lance-Bottoms issued a mask mandate for all public indoor spaces. Her executive order follows a similar move by the City of Savannah, which became the first city in Georgia to reinstate mask requirements.
In Washington, DC, the US House of Representatives has once again required masks to be worn on the House floor.
In the State of Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly announced that beginning Monday, state employees will be required to wear masks indoors regardless of vaccination status.
“For my authority under the state constitution, beginning next Monday, state employees, regardless of their vaccination status, will be required to wear masks indoors at work if they cannot socially distance,” the governor said. “Additionally, anyone entering state buildings or facilities will also be required to mask up.”
In a surprise move that underscores the severity of the issue, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky purchased a series of ads encouraging residents in his state to get vaccinated. His move was unexpected since many Republicans have followed Donald Trump’s lead to downplay the virus and Fox News’ stance to ignore vaccines.
.
“Not enough people are vaccinated. So we’re trying to get them to reconsider and get back on the path to get us to some level of herd immunity.” – Sen. Mitch McConnell
.
According to Dr. Brian Strom, chancellor of Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences in New Jersey, unvaccinated individuals infected with the Delta Variant have more than 1,000 times as many viral particles in their respiratory systems as those infected by the original strain.
“[The delta variant] is dramatically more contagious,” Strom said. “And vaccinations petered out. The net effect is that this would become a disease on the unvaccinated, and that is what happened.”
In addition to the wildfire of virus in Kentucky, Florida is an expected hot spot where travelers have flocked to beaches to celebrate the “end of COVID.” Missouri is another hot spot — particularly in the Lake of the Ozarks — where masks, social distancing, and the very mention of the vaccine are looked upon like a 2-headed monster. In fact, only 41% of Missouri residents have bothered to get vaccinated, which has allowed the virus to balloon back to dangerous levels.
“The main thing and the hardest thing to fight is trying to spread the truth about the vaccines,” Dr. Taylor Nelson, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri’s division of infectious disease said. “There’s so much misinformation out there that a lot of people get those ideas in their heads, and it’s really hard to combat that.”
Sadly, since the vaccine has become so politicalized and polarizing, the CDC’s recommendation to put masks back on will likely fall on deaf ears. Those who would actually listen to the mask mandate are potentially already vaccinated. Those who are not vaccinated have already ignored CDC guidelines and will almost assuredly continue to tune out any attempts to wear a mask now.
New York Times: Even before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended this week that vaccinated Americans in coronavirus hot spots around the country go back to wearing face coverings indoors, a resistance had been building against any new masking requirements, no matter the resurgence of infections. Hours before the C.D.C.’s announcement on Tuesday, the school board in Broward County, Fla., postponed a meeting on back-to-school protection rules after a small crowd of mask-less adults and children showed up to the lobby of the school district headquarters and got into a tense exchange with masked members of the local teachers’ union. In Missouri, where rampant Covid-19 has once again flooded hospitals, St. Louis County reinstated a mask mandate on Monday, ahead of the C.D.C.’s updated advice — only to face a lawsuit hours later from Eric Schmitt, the state’s Republican attorney general, who accused the county of “unacceptable and… Read more »