Some businesses are starting to relax mask policies indoors. This comes just a couple of weeks after the CDC said fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear masks outside. Replying to a question on NBC about whether mask use inside should be relaxed, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “I think so, and I think you’re going to probably be seeing that as we go along, and as more people get vaccinated.”
“The C.D.C. will be, almost in real time (be) updating their recommendations and their guidelines. But yes, we do need to start being more liberal as we get more people vaccinated.”
This came in response to former FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb’s comment last week that “we should start lifting these restrictions as aggressively as we put them in… The only way to earn public credibility is to demonstrate that you’re willing to relax these provisions as the situation improves.”
Today Gottlieb says it’s time for businesses to “develop their own guidelines… if they wait for the CDC to put out guidance, I don’t think they are going to like what they are going to get.”
Some businesses are doing just that, Equinox gym, has had a mandatory mask policy since it reopened last year, but in some locations, it was relaxed over the weekend. An email sent to members of the Coral Gables, Florida location said that going forward “Masks are recommended, but not required.” It was a similar situation at the LA Fitness in Miami (see above).
While everyone has their own comfort level of masking, it certainly varies from business to business and from person to person, especially among those who are vaccinated.
In Scientific American, opinion columnist Stephen Thrasher writes that as more people get vaccinated we need to reevaluate how we talk about COVID rise, “I am happy to let go of fears of harming others or myself by engaging in normative life activities.”
The trauma of the past 15 months or so will mean that many of us will have to be socialized into unmasking and being intimate with one another again. That socialization can be better aided if news media organizations reassess risk, narrate risk with more nuance and do not frame this next stage of the pandemic in all-or-nothing terms.
