Looking to share a point of view and also invite correction where necessary.
I’ve been troubled by a lot of the stuff I’ve seen on Facebook since Thursday about the CDC guidance. There are some *great* questions being raised by friends and colleagues that I think we ought to think about. These include, most notably:
1) how can we trust that those around us not wearing masks are in fact two weeks post shots (and therefore virtually unable to spread the virus to us), instead of just taking advantage of the freedom that the vaccine provides to the vaccinated? and
2) what are the bounds of our responsibilities for caring for others by continuing to wear masks to normalize what is required for those who are not yet vaccinated and likely necessary for those who are immunocompromised?
But it doesn’t seem like these are matters for the CDC to adjudicate. In fact, it’s stuff that the CDC should *not* be adjudicating; local and state leadership, driven by citizens’ demands, are the venue for thinking about and answering (and legislating) those questions.
The CDC was offering evidence based guidance for individuals who have been vaccinated, not answering the more challenging questions that we as a polity now face.
I’m really troubled, for example, that the Biden administration was so stalwart that we will not be pursuing any national or other streamlined system for identifying those who have and have not yet been vaccinated. But the fact is, there is a reason they have to be so committed: because the American public, including many on both the left and right, will not abide such a system. We should be having a better conversation about that, but we’re not.
Furthermore, demanding that the CDC intervene in such determinations politicizes the organization in *precisely* the ways that disincline people from getting the vaccinations that our collective future depends on.
Instead, the same people that were insisting that everyone trust the science throughout this last year seem to be upset that the CDC is not withholding valuable information from the vaccinated public because it could provide cover for dishonest people to refrain from wearing masks when they’re not yet vaccinated.
We were always going to have to deal with this tension. It is not up to the scientific establishment to do it on our behalf.
And given that the problem that underlies that issue is a severe lack of trust across the political divide, I am worried that expecting the CDC to fail to be forthcoming exacerbates the problem.
(For the record, I got my second shot on April 8 and have continued to wear a mask in public at all times, motivated mostly by my heeding the instruction that that this liberty of [mine] does not become a stumbling block to the weak per 1 Cor. 8:9 and Rom. 14:13. That said, I’m in my ninth month of pregnancy and operating at 50% lung capacity, and have been on the verge of fainting about a half dozen times in the last few weeks because of the requirement that I wear a mask indoors. I am grateful to know that if I start to feel that way again, removing my mask for a few minutes to catch my breath will not endanger my neighbors’ lives.)