The CDC has finally caught up with with basic science in issuing guidance that vaccinated people no longer have to wear masks either indoors or outdoors, whether or not they’ll be exposed to other unvaccinated people.
The announcement in effect declares that once a person is vaccinated, the pandemic is over for them.
Though this is an important and long overdue development, because the guidance only refers to vaccinated people, and the vaccine has only been authorized for those 12 and older, it means that children will still be subjected to scientifically unnecessary rules.
Children are at extremely low risk of getting severe COVID-19 or spreading it. The only rationale for ever having them wear masks was to limit the possibility of spreading to older and more vulnerable populations. But with those populations now protected, that rationale has gone away.
What’s especially cruel is current CDC guidance for summer camps, which says that children will have to wear masks outdoors despite the negligible risk of transmission and the brutal heat in many parts of the country.
Saying that vaccinated people do not need masks is the bare minimum obvious thing that CDC should acknowledge. But it’s time for CDC to go further in catching up to science, and liberate children.