WASHINGTON – As some states, particularly Texas, begin to suspend masquerade mandates, the Biden government is launching an informal but energetic campaign to prevent others from following suit. The top doctors of the White House coronavirus task force argue that even with 2 million Americans being vaccinated daily, thinking that the pandemic is almost over is the surest way to extend the duration of this pandemic.
“Wear a mask,” said White House senior coronavirus adviser Andy Slavitt during a news conference with reporters on Friday. “Not forever, but for now.”
That warning comes just days after Governor Greg Abbott made Texas the largest state in the country without a mask mandate. Abbott appears to have made that decision without consulting his own scientific advisers. “Texas has made some real progress, but it is too early to fully reopen and stop hiding from others,” one of those advisers told Dallas Morning News.
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves also canceled his state’s mask mandate this week.
More than a dozen other states are preparing to suspend their own orders this spring, NBC News reported earlier this week, although the country is reporting about 60,000 new infections a day. Without launching the kind of large-scale cultural warfare that former President Donald Trump enjoyed, the Biden government has reacted against such movements.
Speaking at the White House on Wednesday, President Biden said Texas made a “big mistake”, adding that “the last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking” on the masks.
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also spent much of the week urging Americans not to throw their masks in the trash can yet.
“I know that the idea of relaxing with the mask on and returning to everyday activities is appealing,” said Walensky on Friday, “but we are not there yet.”
She added that “we have seen this film before,” a reference to increased dissemination in the community when public health restrictions were lifted.
Biden promised to have enough doses of the coronavirus vaccine to inoculate all Americans by the end of May. The more the virus can spread until then, the more likely it is that a vaccine-resistant strain will develop. At Friday’s meeting, Dr. Anthony Fauci displayed a graph showing that new cases have reached a plateau in the past few days, after a sharp drop following the sudden increase in the winter holiday.
“A virus cannot mutate if it does not replicate, and it replicates in infected individuals,” explained Fauci in what he said was a mini-course in basic virology. “A high basic level of spread of the virus by the community favors the mutation and evolution of variants”. These variants evolve, said Fauci, according to the principle of natural selection, which necessarily means that they could be more difficult to contain with current vaccines.
The point was clear: in order to prevent these new variants from emerging and potentially prolonging the pandemic, people should continue to wear face masks, limiting the spread to the community.
Walensky said on Friday that new variants of the coronavirus were found in 48 states. In general, vaccines are still highly effective against them, but there are concerns that strains resistant to the vaccine may emerge.
Friday’s briefing was accompanied by a new CDC study that found that “mandates have been associated with decreases in daily COVID-19 cases and mortality rates.” That same study found that allowing indoor meals in restaurants caused the virus to proliferate at a higher rate.
The scientific justification for the masks has become increasingly clear throughout the pandemic. Nearly a year ago, public health officials from the Trump administration advised people not to wear masks, largely because they feared that a rush to face coverings would leave hospital workers unprotected.
There was also an emphasis on surface cleaning and hand washing, and although both are solid public health measures, the researchers ended up confirming that the virus spreads almost exclusively through airborne particles.
Opponents of facial coverage used conflicting medical claims, issued when data was scarce, to mount their case against the masks. Part of that opposition has gone away, especially since Trump has left the public eye. But the opposition remains, especially as Americans of all political beliefs succumb to the fatigue of the pandemic.
The Biden administration tried to dispel that opposition without getting involved in the kind of acrimonious comings and goings that marked the way Trump handled the pandemic, especially when he disagreed with Democratic governors. At the same time, the new government is working against a tired public, clearly eager to declare that the battle against the coronavirus is over.
“There is a light at the end of this tunnel,” said Walensky on Friday, “but we must be prepared for the fact that the road ahead may not be smooth.”
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