CDC’s New Mask Guidance is a good thing, right?
The CDC shocked the United States last week with new announcements regarding masks and vaccinated individuals, so as a Company leader what does that information mean for you? Let’s break it down.
The Key Point Summary straight from the CDC updated on May 13, 2021 is as follows:
The following recommendations apply to non-healthcare settings. For related information for healthcare settings, visit Updated Healthcare Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations in Response to COVID-19 Vaccination.
Fully vaccinated people can:
Resume activities without wearing masks or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance
Resume domestic travel and refrain from testing before or after travel or self-quarantine after travel
Refrain from testing before leaving the United States for international travel (unless required by the destination) and refrain from self-quarantine after arriving back in the United States
Refrain from testing following a known exposure, if asymptomatic, with some exceptions for specific settings
Refrain from quarantine following a known exposure if asymptomatic
Refrain from routine screening testing if feasible
For now, fully vaccinated people should continue to:
Get tested if experiencing COVID-19 symptoms
Follow CDC and health department travel requirements and recommendations
Okay….then on May 17, 2021, in the CDC’s most recent newsletter update to COVID-19, I was thinking they would provide further guidance for businesses but it just repeated…
“If you are fully vaccinated, you can resume activities that you did before the pandemic without wearing a mask or physically distancing….”
Yayyy!! The CDC is declaring no more masks for vaccinated individuals which means some declaration of the end of the pandemic, right? Right? Let’s read the next part of that paragraph….
“except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations.
That includes local business and workplace guidance. You will still be required to wear a mask on planes, buses, trains, and other forms of public transportation traveling into, within, or out of the United States, and in U.S. transportation hubs such as airports and stations. You should still watch out for symptoms of COVID-19, especially if you’ve been around someone who is sick. If you have symptoms of COVID-19, you should get tested and stay home and away from others.”
Well, wait a minute. That doesn’t sound like the end of the pandemic at all. So what does this mean for businesses? It says here above that vaccinated people have to still wear a mask and social distance if local businesses or workplace guidance require it. Here you thought maybe the CDC was the workplace guidance.
Almost overnight, we started seeing businesses strip their mask mandates. Walmart came right out of the gate with a change to their mask policy. Since then we have seen Costco, Target and Starbucks follow.
In an interesting interview given this last Sunday, the CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told CNN’s Dana Bush on “State of the Union” when asked if she trusted people would wear a mask if they were unvaccinated, "What we're really asking in those settings, is to say, in terms of the honor system, people have to be honest with themselves," Walensky said. "You're protected if you're vaccinated, you're not if you're not vaccinated."
Check it out here.
I want to caution all businesses to be careful about something the CDC did not talk about. There are individuals in your workforce that may not have gotten the vaccine and the reasons behind that may vary from being scared to having a medical reason, a medical disability or a religious reason.
If you remove the masks from the vaccinated individuals, what does that mean for the unvaccinated? Are you creating a divide or a breeding ground for the people that are not vaccinated (who are still wearing their masks and social distancing) to be treated differently?
Also, let’s talk about two big government agencies that didn’t get the CDC memo early or didn’t have time to act. Those two agencies would be OSHA & the EEOC.
OSHA has not updated their guidance as of the date of this blog but they do appear to recognize this may change things and they simply have a red box on their website stating the following:
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued new guidance relating to recommended precautions for people who are fully vaccinated, which is applicable to activities outside of healthcare and a few other environments. OSHA is reviewing the recent CDC guidance and will update our materials on this website accordingly. Until those updates are complete, please refer to the CDC guidance for information on measures appropriate to protect fully vaccinated workers.”
EEOC seems to be in a similar position, with a blue box at the top of their page for their guidance “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws” stating the following:
These materials were prepared prior to the CDC’s updated guidance for fully vaccinated individuals issued on May 13, 2021, and any supplements. The EEOC is considering any impact of these developments on COVID-19 technical assistance provided to date.
So where does that leave us… it is a waiting situation at the moment, but unfortunately we have played this waiting game before and it doesn’t always turn out well. When will the guidance come? Will there be different guidance and what will that look like from OSHA and the EEOC? I guess we will all be waiting on pins and needles to find out… while business leaders are left to piece it together in the meantime… or plunge into the deep end with Walmart, Costco, Target and Starbucks….