Like a lot of you, I read the CDC’s decision carefully and I understand it, but I’ve got some serious questions about the way it’s playing out so far in the real world, where Americans are gonna be Americans about it.
The CDC is telling vaccinated American adults that they do not need to wear masks outdoors whatsoever, and do not even need masks indoors in many settings. They are also, with apparently a straight face, telling unvaccinated Americans to continue to wear masks in many of these same situations — implying that they believe that the unvaccinated have been wearing masks.
Meanwhile…
- A large % of unvaccinated Americans seem to be glad to use this new lax set of rules to do whatever they want to do. For many of them, it means going mask-free outdoors and indoors whenever they want to, or, all the time (as much as they possibly can). Many of them are cynically laughing about it.
- Conversely, this is causing some vaccinated Americans to feel more unease about letting go of their masks in outdoor settings, and even more so in all indoor settings.
That is what is happening. And it didn’t take a PhD in human behavioral studies to game it out. One could easily predict that the American public response was going to unfold in exactly this way.
So I’m curious to know what people think. Was the CDC naive, or calculating? Here are the options —
Naive: The CDC, in announcing this decision, actually thought that unvaccinated Americans would “regulate themselves” and wear masks in public and social situations, and faithfully do what the CDC is saying.
Strategic: The CDC knew and knows how this is going to unfold. And they would rather get us to “herd immunity” that much faster by setting up conditions in which the vaccinated are safely protected from serious illness while the unvaccinated “go for it!” and infect one another — much the same way as they did last summer 2020 in America’s largest hot-weather states (FL, TX, AZ etc) where the summer months drive people indoors... to breathe together the same air-conditioned air. Strategic: the CDC is hoping for some level of unvaxxed-to-unvaxxed infections to happen, and to happen in the next two months, swiftly, and to simmer down before Labor Day and the return to the school year. If 60% of us get properly vaccinated and another 20% of us at least get our antibodies the hard way… well, that’s America reaching 80%. Herd immunity, or a lot closer to it.
The strategic option at least would mean the CDC is smart… because that’s the outcome we are very likely looking at.
Curious to know your thoughts.