The Coronavirus Vaccine and outbreak has been the center of attention for some time now as it has impacted everyone and their daily lives for sometime.
With many people getting vaccines and with the open field of now most ages able to get them especially this week, the leniency of the government and what they mandate has began to ease up. As more people get vaccinated, and the Covid-19 cases continue to shrink, the decisions made by the government should only seemingly revert closer and closer back to normal life before the pandemic.
It is evident that these matters and these political ideals have been turned into a full out anger argument. With the simple ideas behind wearing a mask turning into emotionally based arguments, Biden has ultimately expressed an idea of safety that has been carried throughout this entire process.
As the continuation for bettering the Covid-19 situation, Joe Biden deserves a lot of respect and appraisal for the way that he has handled the situation under stressful times through everything that has happened, and he has held up his promises and ideals.
Not mandating masks when surround with other with the second dose of the vaccine as well is great news to many and can hopefully regain the normalcy that was previously taken accounted for.
Although not everyone will agree or support these conditions, it is evident that it is a step in the right direction as over 100 million people in the United States have gotten their second dose of the vaccine helping to benefit all.
Thinking Questions:
1. Was this the right time to start being lenient on the mask wearing in your opinion? Why not earlier? Why not later?
2. What prompts the idea for people to disagree on something as simple as wearing a mask?
https://www.nytimes.com/
9 comments:
I think that the overall vaccination process has been a great success, and I would argue that this began even during Trump's presidency. One thing I would really commend Biden for is his regulations, such as with masks and the slow re-opening of the country. I think that this is also a great time to begin re-opening the country, as long as the CDC stays on top of case data and makes sure that we do not increase case rates. I know there are some policies to remove masks in public places, which I am kind of okay with. On one hand, it'll be nice for fully vaccinated people to get rid of masks with little worry about the virus, because it is mostly effective. At the same time, unvaccinated people get to decide if they want to take the risk of wearing a mask, because there is no real way to prevent unvaccinated people from wearing masks. The cards are too easy to forge and too difficult to monitor, so I think vaccinated and unvaccinated people will both be allowed to go in public without a mask. The concern here is that most masks protect others rather than oneself, so unvaccinated people who are concerned about the virus will actually be put in potentially more risk than before the policy was made. I hope the CDC certifies some masks that protect oneself so that unvaccinated people can wear these and feel safe in public once again. I think that the country's vaccination program is at a point where it can begin testing its efficacy through increased re-openings, and if it fails we need to wait for a greater percentage of the population to be inoculated
It's really exciting to see that our country is starting to open up again and beginning to return to normalcy. I do think that politicians should recommend people to be apprehensive about not wearing masks - like Vasilis said, it is pretty easy to forge vaccination record cards, and you can't really tell the difference between unmasked vaccinated vs unvaccinated people. I have a few doubts about completely dropping the mask mandate, especially since there are many variants of the virus still going around (and that will continue to mutate). I don't think masks will completely disappear, and that they will be useful during the flu season - for example, flu season practically didn’t exist this year, (data from the CDC found that there have been under 2,000 clinically diagnosed cases of the flu since September vs the 56 million cases from the year before).
https://www.prevention.com/health/a35740607/when-will-we-stop-wearing-masks-covid-19/
With more colleges and universities opening up this fall and younger kids getting vaccinated it finally seems like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, I do agree with Varsha - it seems hard to be able to tell the difference between people who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. I think masks will take a while to go away especially in crowded and indoor places.
Though its really exciting to see more progression towards how things were pre covid, I think that the mask mandate being lifted is a little too rushed. Just when things are getting better, why the sudden need to hit the ground running? We should wait it out a little bit more instead of suddenly opening so many things up and lifting the mask mandate . And how would we know who is and who isn't vaccinated?
both be allowed without a mask, which could put those who can't or refuse to get the vaccine at risk. It's all very fuzzy right now, so time will tell.
Throughout the pandemic, I have been very cautious of pandemic safety concerns, including mask wearing. That being said, I know that health officials have known that mask wearing hasn't been necessary for a while now, and the recent lift on the mask mandate is clearly meant to easy tension among the public. Regardless, I think that it couldn't hurt to keep the masks on for a bit longer. As for the mask outrage issue, I think the reason there is so much reason to get upset is because forcing people to wear something can feel like a violation of privacy. I think it's been long enough, though, since the start of the pandemic that most people have accepted masks as a part of everyday life, and as we near the light at the end of the tunnel, they're only here for a bit longer.
In terms of masks, I don't think it's the best time to be removing the mask mandate, especially since we haven't yet reached herd immunity throughout the U.S. Removing the mask mandate right now seems more like a performative measure to convince people of normalcy rather than an actual representation of where we are in terms of eliminating COVID. Right now it's more important that we focus on actually achieving herd immunity so that we can afford to remove the mask mandate and transition back to something resembling pre-COVID social structures than remove masks right off the bat to convince the population that everything is normal now.
I think the issue on the "debate" surrounding masks is that the United States has a history of promoting personal independence within the population, to the degree that it extends to how much we are willing to sympathize with and act in the preservation of people that aren't in our immediate social vicinity. Our social norms promote the idea that we shouldn't need to do things that work for the benefit of others and not ourselves (see: the argument that we shouldn't have universal healthcare/social programs because paying taxes so that "freeloaders" can benefit off the system is unfair to the people who have to pay taxes), and so the slight inconvenience of being required to wear a face covering suddenly becomes a violation of our freedoms as Americans, especially for those privileged to never come into contact with COVID-19 or people who have had COVID-19 or people who are at risk of COVID-19.
I think the way Biden is handling the mask mandate was really goo because as more and more people get vaccinated, then the economy an the world needs to start to return to normalcy as well. I think if it was lifted earlier then cases would increase an it would be much more dangerous. I think if it happened later it would be safer, but maybe more hesitation an fear would come up. I think people will make the mask mandate a political issue an it will be hard to get everyone on the same page on whether the mask mandate is safe or not.
I think the whole mask thing was great for the start of the pandemic. People were listening to the CDC and they were keeping the masks on. Now people who are vaccinated are actually advised that they don't have to wear a mask in open areas. This is the start of the world going back to a non cover style of life. Though cover and other diseases are here to stay I think It is wonderful that this new vaccine is giving people the comfort they have been needing to go outside without a mask. I am ver much looking forward to going to college and not having to wear a mask everywhere I go when I am either trying to meet new people or just going to class.
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