U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Sunday mentioned the possibility of local authorities reimposing mask mandates amid the COVID “Delta” variant surge. In interviews with mainstream media outlets, he said counties across the nation may follow Los Angeles’ lead and impose indoor mask mandates. Murthy also defended the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision in May to lift mask guidance for all vaccinated individuals amid criticism the move may have been premature.
“Unfortunately, we are seeing rises, particularly among the unvaccinated in many parts of the country now,” Murthy told anchor Martha Raddatz on ABC’s This Week.
Murthy stated that addressing the rise, counties may reimpose mask mandates, and this would not contradict the CDC guidelines since the latter give local officials “flexibility” to help control outbreaks, if needed.
“In areas where there are low numbers of vaccinated people, where cases are rising, it’s very reasonable for counties to take more mitigation measures, like the mask rules coming out of L.A.,” he said. “And I anticipate that will happen in other parts of the country — and that’s not contradictory to the guidances the CDC has issued.”
During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Murthy again contended that the CDC’s decision was meant to give flexibility to individuals and localities to make their own decisions regarding mask mandates as the pandemic effort moves “into more of a local and regional response.”
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Los Angeles County restored its indoor mask mandate on Saturday — even for those who have been vaccinated against the virus.
“This is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” said the country’s public health officer, Dr. Muntu Davis, adding that there had been more than 1,000 new cases daily for a week and “substantial community transmission.”
A main reason behind the decision was a plateau in vaccination rates among the county’s 10 million residents. Nearly five million people are fully vaccinated, according to the public health department, but just as many residents remain “unprotected.” New infections and hospitalizations have been concentrated among unvaccinated residents, county officials claim, with younger people making up a larger share of infections than during past spikes. Reportedly, approximately 97 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States are among the unvaccinated, and at least 58 percent of current reported cases were directly linked to the “Delta” variant. Now, the masks are said to add an “extra layer of protection” to vaccinated people while ensuring that unvaccinated people can no longer skirt indoor face-covering requirements.
In May, the CDC updated its mask guidance for vaccinated people, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced that “Anyone who is fully vaccinated, can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing. If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.” It is noted, however, that the guidelines are subject to federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. President Biden, who used to be a true mask zealot, commented on CDC’s decision to relax its mask guidelines: “For now, after a year of hard work and so much sacrifice, the rule is very simple: Get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.”
But now, apparently, the administration backs the mandates that require even those “fully protected” to wear masks while indoors and sees no contradiction between the “science” that supposedly drives CDC’s decisions and local orders that force everyone to put a mask back on.
Notably, the Los Angeles County sheriff announced that his department will not expend its limited resources to enforce the order. Instead, the agency will ask the community to voluntarily comply with the order.
Top Biden administration officials, including Murthy, Walensky, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, all say the surge in COVID-19 cases is driven by the unvaccinated population, but fail to mention the efficacy of the current COVID vaccine is reportedly drastically reduced against the new SARS-CoV-2 mutation, as confirmed by the numerous sources.
Dr. Robert Malone, one of the creators of the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, has expressed his concern that in Europe, a surge of COVID-19 cases is occuring in the areas with high vaccination rates. Then, a new U.K. study showed that almost half of new cases were registered among fully vaccinated people. Israeli health authorities have just admitted that their exclusively used Pfizer vaccine is “significantly less” effective at helping prevent infection with the “Delta” variant.
If the vaccines’ efficacy is reduced against the Delta variant, then will masks help to contain the spread of what is believed to be a new “highly transmittable” strain? Despite what the top officials claim, the data from their own sources show no correlation between the strength of a state’s masks and lockdown measures and total COVID-19 deaths. In fact, the 10 states with the highest rate of mask usage have been doing worse in both cases and deaths than the 10 states with the lowest rate of mask usage. The Mises Institute, which tracked the trends between mask usage and death/hospitalization rates, notes: “If we are assuming fairly consistent rates of mask usage across the entire duration of the pandemic while also assuming that the science behind masks is truly settled, it’s quite difficult to explain away any period of time in which states with the lowest rates of mask usage were outperforming states with the highest rates.”
