President Joe Biden says the CDC’s updated guidance that says vaccinated Americans can take off their masks is proof that the U.S. “proved the doubters wrong,” that 2021 would not be a lost year like 2020. But will masks and who may or may not continue wearing them, now become just another political hot-button issue?
Staffers at the White House were seen removing their masks after the new guidance was announced Thursday. The White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) told its members masks were no longer necessary for reporters working at the White House.
“Effective immediately, pursuant to the new CDC guidance, mask-wearing requirements are lifted at the White House complex for those who are 14 days after their last required dose of one of the COVID-19 shots,” WHCA President Zeke Miller wrote in an email to members.
Biden did the same. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia told reporters that she and other Republican senators who were meeting with the president about infrastructure removed their masks once the CDC made it official. She said Biden also removed his mask.
Later, President Biden talked about what is seen as a turning point in the pandemic that has impacted society for more than a year.
First Lady Jill Biden, in West Virginia with Senator Joe Manchin, also celebrated going massless.
But those brief moments of bipartisan agreement aside, masks have been a political pawn for quite some time, and that may not go away anytime soon. In the Senate, a difference of opinion on whether to wear them or not was on display Thursday.
Two other Republican Senators, Joni Ernst and Susan Collins, also unmasked on the Senate floor after the last vote of the day. Watch the video clip below to see Collins’ rather dramatic gesture after she took it off.
But the CDC’s revised guidance doesn’t necessarily mean a change in mask requirements on Capitol Hill is imminent.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and several other colleagues, however, were seen wearing masks at the end of the day.
Michigan Republican lawmaker Lisa McClain ripped her mask off and chucked it for her social media post.
However, the Congresswoman may want to hold on to it a bit longer.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN’s Manu Raju she’s not ready to remove the mandate that masks must be worn on the House floor.
Predictably, some Republicans, including Florida Rep. Brian Mast, criticized Pelosi’s decision to not budge from the mask requirement.
It will be interesting to see how the mask issue plays out at the Capitol in the coming days. Given the toxic atmosphere, we should not expect a consensus either way.