Confusion over masks sparks new political showdown - CNN Politics - 0 views
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Top White House adviser Anita Dunn Sunday defended President Joe Biden over his continued use of a mask outdoors – even though the practice appears to conflict with new and relaxed administration guidelines for fully vaccinated citizens.
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The Republican National Committee, for instance, blasted Biden for “breaking” US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, and the issue has become one of the latest culture war flashpoints for right-wing talk show hosts.
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Republicans are seizing on the controversy over masks to bolster their wider narrative that Biden and Democrats are too politically correct and using the power of government to infringe on the freedoms of Americans – a conceit that works for them on taxes to guns and public health to climate change.
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It’s not just political factions using the issue for partisan advantage – though that is happening as Covid-19 restrictions continue to straddle the quintessentially American tension between individual freedom and the reach of government. Medical experts are engaging in an intense debate over whether the CDC is being too cautious in the way it’s loosening mask guidance or is offering the public conflicting, confusing advice.
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The complications of exiting the pandemic – a process that no one currently in positions of power has ever experienced – explain why Biden’s success in getting more than 100 million Americans fully immunized doesn’t mean Covid-19 is no longer perilous or is any less politically treacherous for the White House.
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The President’s remarks followed new CDC guidance last week that mean fully vaccinated people can now unmask at small outdoor gatherings or when dining outside with friends from multiple households. Unvaccinated people should still cover their faces.
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fter months of stressing caution and sticking to restrictions – after a failure to do so cost thousands of lives under Trump – Biden now appears at risk of paying a political price for being too circumspect even though his initial caution proved successful.
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“It’s time for the CDC to start embracing this kind of bifurcated strategy and perhaps giving the unvaccinated a hint of what life can be like if they become vaccinated,” he said.
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This is a pretty dangerous time to be unvaccinated, but what (the) CDC is signaling is if you are fully vaccinated, freedoms are just becoming safer and safer for people.”
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While public health experts warn that maximizing vaccinations is vital to creating the herd immunity in the population necessary to stop Covid-19 spreading
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“It is America. Everybody has an individual right. I think that one of the things we have to be careful about is not shaming people or talking down to them or objecting to their way of life,” Marshall told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “Newsroom” on Saturday.
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They’ve been told they don’t need a mask. They need a mask. They’ve been told that even if you have a vaccine, you have to keep wearing the mask,” Marshall said.