Should we all sigh with relief now CDC announced a ‘greatly-reducing’ risk of serious complications from COVID-19? A Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) poll found 62% of Americans agree the worst of the pandemic is behind us. Should we still bother with face masks with that weight of opinion, or delay a while longer?
Half of America Still Worries About the Situation
If we dig deeper into the KFF poll, we find the situation is not as cut and dried according to fact-checker Poynter Institute.
1… 49% of adults in the poll were very worried, or somewhat worried relaxing controls would cause more pandemic deaths.
2… However 50% were not too worried, or not at all worried pandemic deaths would increase in their communities.
Kaiser Health News interprets these divergent opinions as evidence ‘we are approaching a transition from the pandemic phase to an endemic phase.’ There were always people opposed to wearing face masks and social distancing. Therefore the KFF poll is not necessarily a seismic shift.
Perhaps We Should Still Bother with Face Masks
Dr. Georges Benjamin is executive director of the American Public Health Association. He believes CDC is changing its focus to monitoring for spikes of infection, rather than pushing messages of prevention.
However, Dr. Benjamin Neuman recommends a more cautious approach. The Texas A&M University professor, and chief virologist at its Global Health Research Complex has this to say.
‘When I hear about relaxing regulations it sounds a lot like people giving up. And we’re not there yet, and it’s a little bit heartbreaking and a little bit hair-pulling.’ At the end of the day we have to decide for ourselves whether to bother with face masks, or take our chances with our own immunity alone.
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