Written by the distinguished jurist, John Wilson (ret.)
The announcement came with a general sigh of relief nationwide; “(F)ully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting,” The Center for Disease Control stated in the middle of May. “Fully vaccinated people can… (r)esume activities without wearing masks or physically distancing… (r)esume domestic travel and refrain from testing before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel…(r)efrain from testing before leaving the United States for international travel…and refrain from self-quarantine after arriving back in the United States.”
But there are some very large caveats involved with this guidance; “except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance,” and in the case of international travel, testing can be refrained from, “unless required by the destination.”
This sudden change came as a shock to most Americans. Just three months ago, when the Governors of Texas and Mississippi removed state mask mandates, President Biden said, “The last thing — the last thing — we need is the Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything’s fine, take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters.” Predictably, “Gilberto Hinojosa, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, called Abbott’s decision ‘extremely dangerous’ and referred to him as ‘the worst governor in modern Texas history.’ ‘This will kill Texans,’ Hinojosa said in a statement. ‘Our country’s infectious disease specialists have warned that we should not put our guard down even as we make progress towards vaccinations.'”
Despite this hysterical rhetoric, and after more than a year of demanding that Americans wear masks in every possible social setting, indoors and out, the CDC abruptly turned an about face. Why? Did the science change? Have enough people been vaccinated that the legendary “herd immunity” has occurred?
More likely than not, the CDC made the change to avoid embarrassing itself any further, and to encourage people to actually get the vaccine.
Recently, The Atlantic revealed that “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is…combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus…(t)he agency confirmed…that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons…(t)his is not merely a technical error. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points.”
It and all around enjoyed elective buy generic cialis loved this and accomplishes erectile organ development through the sheer force of vacuum innovation. Only you have to order levitra generika with the popularity of their brand names, different laboratories are marketing their individual brands like the cialis in spite of the fact that some side effects may be noticeable after 45mins* Effective treatment time is 4 – 6 hours. So both in diabetes and in exercise the prime element is calories or the glucose deposit in the blood. overnight generic viagra You must be very vigilant in viagra no prescription online determining who you trust when you order online.Further, “(i)n a report that challenges widely accepted COVID-19 prevention guidelines, researchers (from MIT) say there’s ‘little benefit’ to health officials’ ‘6-foot rule,’ especially when wearing masks inside… the amount of time spent indoors with an infected person is more important than the distance you are from them — a factor that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have overlooked…MIT engineering professor Martin Bazant, who authored the study, said… “What our analysis continues to show is that many spaces that have been shut down in fact don’t need to be. Oftentimes the space is large enough, the ventilation is good enough, the amount of time people spend together is such that those spaces can be safely operated even at full capacity and the scientific support for reduced capacity in those spaces is really not very good.”
These revelations are embarrassing enough, and would justify a rethinking of the recommendations made by the CDC which relied upon such faulty data. But the other reason for the agency’s change in position is revealed by former New York Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey, writing in the New York Post; “Even less scientific than the 6-foot rule is the (CDC’s) guidance for the fully vaccinated. The agency tells them to ‘continue to wear masks, maintain physical distance and practice other prevention measures when visiting with unvaccinated people.’ That guidance eliminates a major incentive for getting the shots in the first place and will slow America’s recovery. Infections among the vaccinated do occur, but very rarely, and serious illness is even rarer. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines reduce the risk of developing COVID by 90 to 95 percent, compared with being unvaccinated. US data show the risk of getting infected after these vaccines is a minuscule 0.008 percent.”
In other words, why should I get a vaccine if I still have to maintain social distance, and stay quarantined with a mask on?
Even the CDC must have noticed this sort of thinking was becoming prevalent. “More than 5 million Americans have skipped out on their second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…(a)pproximately 141 million, or about 43% of Americans, have received at least one dose of the vaccine so far and 29% of Americans have been fully vaccinated, according to the (CDC).”
Obviously, then, if you want to encourage people to take the vaccine, you have to give them some incentive. This is especially true after Democrats like Kamala Harris publicly stated they had no trust in the vaccine, since it was developed under the Trump Administration.
Judge Wilson’s analysis concludes tomorrow
Illustration: Pixabay