Did the CDC's revised masking guidelines in May cause the current spike in covid-19 cases? 📊 July 18, 2021
Blaming government decision-makers is easy, but actually changing individuals' behavior is hard — and predicting covid spikes even harder
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On Saturday, Leana Wen, a visiting Professor at the George Washington School of Public Health and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post and CNN, sent a tweet writing that “38 states have a greater than 50% increase in #covid19 infections.” Wen argued that “This can be traced back to the CDC’s actions that essentially ended mask mandates for the unvaccinated. The ‘honor system’ did not work, and instead disincentivized people from getting vaccinated.” According to Wen, the CDC’s announcement in early May that vaccinated people could take off their masks indoors led to “widespread chaos and confusion” followed by a “precipitous and premature” decline in mask mandated and mask-wearing. This then le…
