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      in US Politics

      Fauci: Americans will probably need vaccine booster ‘within a year or so’

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      Dr Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday that Americans will probably need a Covid-19 booster shot “within a year or so” as Americans continue to receive vaccinations across the country.The booster may be needed because the durability of protection against the virus is “generally not lifelong”, the chief medical adviser to the president told Axios during a virtual event.On Tuesday, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Dr Peter Marks, also said Covid-19 booster shots, similar to the flu shot, could be needed for fully vaccinated people within a year.Vaccine makers have shown so far that their shots offer strong protection for at least six months, and US health agencies are tracking the impact of new variants on Covid-19 vaccine development.During the interview, Fauci also clarified the new federal guidance on mask-wearing, stating that Americans were “misinterpreting” the announcement.“I think people are misinterpreting, thinking that this is a removal of a mask mandate for everyone. It’s not,” Fauci told Axios’s Mike Allen. “It’s an assurance to those who are vaccinated that they can feel safe, be they outdoors or indoors.”According to Fauci, the mandate “did not explicitly say that unvaccinated people should abandon their masks”.The mask guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last Thursday said fully vaccinated people did not need to wear a mask indoors or outdoors with the exception of healthcare settings, homeless shelters, prison and jails and on public transportation.While some are feeling a sense of freedom after 15 months of face coverings, others have met the guidance with confusion and skepticism. The agency’s announcement prompted major retailers, including Walmart and Starbucks, to lift mask mandates, and some states, including California, will keep their mask orders in place for another month.At least 37% of Americans are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. People are considered fully vaccinated two weeks after they receive a second dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. More

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      in US Politics

      Big Short author Michael Lewis on the inside story of America’s failed Covid response

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      The author and journalist Michael Lewis discusses reporting on a group of individuals who tried to alert the US government to the dangers of its inaction as coronavirus cases began to rise at an alarming rate

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      The author and journalist Michael Lewis has made a career of writing about people who see things coming that most of us don’t. His book The Big Short, which was turned into an Oscar-winning film, followed a group of investors who predicted the collapse of the American housing market in 2007. He tells Rachel Humphreys about the group of individuals who have become the focus of his new book, The Premonition. As Covid case numbers began to rise at an alarming rate across America, Lewis discovered a group of medics and scientists who were trying to alert the US government to the dangers of its inaction. To order The Premonition, visit the Guardian bookshop. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden aides defend controversial Covid mask guidance change

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      This week’s surprise reversal of mask-wearing guidance for those vaccinated against Covid-19 was a “foundational first step” towards returning the US to normal, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) insisted on Sunday, as the agency continued to draw criticism for the sudden and confusing advice.Dr Rochelle Walensky appeared on several Sunday talk shows to stress it was up to individuals whether to follow the guidance issued on Thursday.“This was not permission to shed masks for everybody, everywhere. This was really [a] science-driven individual assessment of your risk,” Walensky told NBC’s Meet the Press.“We are asking people to be honest with themselves. If they are vaccinated and they are not wearing a mask, they are safe. If they are not vaccinated and they are not wearing a mask, they are not safe.”A growing number of groups and health experts have questioned the new guidance, which reversed the CDC position that even those fully vaccinated should continue to wear masks indoors, and came 48 hours after Walensky was assailed in Congress on the issue.A number of mostly Republican-controlled states have subsequently said they are modifying their mask mandates and several large businesses, including Walmart and Starbucks, have dropped them altogether.The nation’s largest nurses union suggested on Saturday the CDC advice was not based on science and said any relaxation of protective health measures would place patients and caregivers at risk.Others were critical of the timing of the new guidance given that emergency approval was given only this week for those aged 12 to 15 to receive the Pzifer-BioNTech vaccine. Children aged 11 and under will likely not be able to receive a vaccine for months.In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, health commentator Dr Leana Wen said the CDC move was “sudden” and prompted “increasing confusion”, particularly for vulnerable groups.“Let’s say you go to the grocery store,” Wen wrote. “It’s crowded and few people there are masked. Perhaps everyone is vaccinated, but perhaps not. What if you’re vaccinated but not fully protected because you’re immunocompromised?“You can no longer count on CDC rules to help you keep safe. What if you don’t have childcare, so you had to bring your kids along? They didn’t choose to remain unvaccinated, the shots aren’t available for them. Surely it’s not fair to put them at risk.”Walensky acknowledged the concern but said some element of risk was inevitable as the US emerges from the pandemic.“We knew that there was going to be a time where we had the majority of Americans who wanted to be vaccinated and yet the children were not going to be eligible,” Walensky told CNN’s State of the Union.“This week we got news that we can vaccinate our 12- to 15-year-olds. We hope by the fall, by the end of this year, we’ll have vaccine eligible at even younger ranges. We recognize the challenge of parents who can’t leave their kids at home to go shopping, those kids should continue to wear masks in those settings and to the best of their ability to keep a distance. Those recommendations have not changed.”She repeated her assertion that it was “individual guidance”.“I want to convey that we are not saying that everybody has to take off their mask if they’re vaccinated,” she said. “It’s been 16 months that we’ve been telling people to mask and this is going to be a slow process.“The other thing is that every community is not the same, not all communities have vaccination rates that are high. These decisions have to be made at the community level”.Dr Anthony Fauci, Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, told CBS’s Face the Nation the changed guidance was underpinned by “an accumulation of data”, including that the vaccines’ effectiveness had proved “even better than in the clinical trials”.Also, he said, “a number of papers have come out showing the vaccine protects even against the variants that are circulating, and we’re seeing that it is very unlikely that a vaccinated person, even if there’s a breakthrough infection, would transmit to someone else.”Fauci was referring to eight vaccinated members of the New York Yankees baseball team who tested positive but exhibited no symptoms.He did, however, appear to acknowledge the sudden switch of advice had been confusing. The CDC, Fauci said, will be “coming out very quickly with individual types of guidances, so people will say, ‘Well, what about the workplace? What about this, what about that?’“That’s going to be clarified pretty quickly I would imagine. Within just a couple of weeks you’re gonna start to see significant clarification of some of the actually understandable and reasonable questions that people are asking.” More

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      in US Politics

      Republican Covid lies follow foreign strongmen’s lead – and are deadly for it | Robert Reich

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      A hospital in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, is being charged under the country’s National Security Act for sounding the alarm over a lack of oxygen that resulted in Covid deaths. The hospital’s owner and manager says police have accused him of “false scaremongering”, after he stated publicly that four patients died on a single day when oxygen ran out.Since Covid-19 exploded in India, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, seems to be trying to the control the news more than the outbreak. On Wednesday, India recorded nearly 363,000 cases and 4,120 deaths, about 30% of worldwide deaths that day. But experts say India is vastly understating the true number. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, estimates at least 25,000 Indians are dying from Covid each day.The horror has been worsened by shortages of oxygen and hospital beds. Yet Modi and his government don’t want the public to get the true story.One big lesson from the Covid crisis: lying makes it worse.Vladimir Putin is busily denying the truth about Covid in Russia. Demographer Alexei Raksha, who worked at Russia’s official statistical agency, Rosstat, but says he was forced to leave last summer for telling the truth about Covid, claims daily data has been “smoothed, rounded, lowered” to look better. Like many experts, he uses excess mortality – the number of deaths during the pandemic over the typical number of deaths – as the best indicator.Trump wants the credit for developing the vaccine. Then he also gets the blame for so few of his voters taking it“If Russia stops at 500,000 excess deaths, that will be a good scenario,” he calculates.Russia was first out of the gate with a vaccine but has fallen woefully behind on vaccinations. Recent polling puts the share of Russians who don’t want to be vaccinated at 60% to 70%. That’s because Putin and other officials have focused less on vaccinating the public than on claiming success in containing Covid.The US is suffering a similar problem – the legacy of another strongman, Donald Trump. Although more than half of US adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, more than 40% of Republicans have consistently told pollsters they won’t get vaccinated. Their recalcitrance is threatening efforts to achieve “herd immunity” and prevent the virus’s spread.Like Modi and Putin, Trump minimized the seriousness of the pandemic and spread misinformation about it. Trump officials ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downplay its severity. He declined to get vaccinated publicly and was noticeably absent from a public service announcement on vaccination that featured all other living former presidents.Trump allies in the media have conducted a scare campaign about the vaccines. In December, Fox News host Laura Ingraham posted a story on Facebook from the Daily Mail purporting to show evidence that Chinese communist party loyalists worked at pharmaceutical companies that developed the coronavirus vaccine.As recently as mid-April, Fox News host Tucker Carlson opined that if the vaccine were truly effective, there’d be no reason for people who received it to wear masks or avoid physical contact.“So maybe it doesn’t work,” he said, “and they’re simply not telling you that.”Why then should anyone be surprised at the reluctance of Trump Republicans to get vaccinated? A recent New York Times analysis showed vaccination rates to be lower in counties where a majority voted for Trump in 2020. States that voted more heavily for Trump are also states where lower percentages of the population have been vaccinated.The Republican pollster Frank Luntz says Trump bears responsibility for the hesitancy of GOP voters to be vaccinated.“He wants to get the credit for developing the vaccine,” Luntz said. “Then he also gets the blame for so few of his voters taking it.”Trump’s Republican party is coming to resemble other authoritarian regimes around the world in other respects as well – purging truth tellers and trucking in lies, misinformation and propaganda harmful to the public.This week the GOP stripped Liz Cheney of her leadership position for telling the truth about the 2020 election. At last week’s congressional hearing about the 6 January attack on the Capitol, one Republican, Andrew Clyde, even denied it happened.“There was no insurrection,” he said. “To call it an insurrection is a bold-faced lie … you would actually think it was a normal tourist visit.”Biden says he plans to call a summit of democratic governments to contain the rise of authoritarianism around the world. I hope he talks about its rise in the US too – and the huge toll it’s already taken on Americans. More

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      in World Politics

      Why the US Will Not Achieve Herd Immunity

      by

      The problem with the COVID-19 pandemic is that we don’t know if we’re coming or going. It’s as if we’re swimming far from shore, overwhelmed by one wave after another, and we’re unsure if we’re heading toward land or away from it.

      China was the early face of COVID-19, but it hasn’t faced many infections since spring 2020. Europe, like the United States, has experienced successive outbreaks. Brazil continues to be hit hard, while Turkey is seeing a reduction of cases from a mid-April surge. Thailand and Cambodia are only now dealing with their first major upticks in the disease.

      Where India Went Wrong

      READ MORE

      But the real surprise has been India. Early on in the pandemic, journalists and scientists were trying to figure out why the coronavirus had made so little mark on the subcontinent and left so few deaths in its wake. Now, after a collective sigh of relief following a modest surge in late summer and fall last year, India is now overwhelmed by over 400,000 cases and more than 4,000 deaths a day, which are both likely to be undercounts.

      There are several reasons for India’s current catastrophe. A more infectious variant started to appear in the population, which the World Health Organization this week labeled a global health risk. The Indian government was not only unprepared for the crisis, but it was dangerously cavalier in its approach to the disease. After last year’s surge, it grew lax on testing and contact tracing. Nor did it put resources into the country’s inadequate medical system or in stockpiling key supplies like oxygen.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Then there are the errors of commission. The government did nothing, for instance, to prevent Kumbh Mela, a Hindu religious event last month that drew millions of pilgrims to a holy location on the Ganges, from turning into the largest super-spreader event on the planet. Prime Minister Narendra Modi even continued to hold mass political rallies as the COVID numbers began to rise.

      When it comes to vaccines, the government has been slow to order doses, distribute them to the population and secure the raw materials to scale up manufacturing. Although India is the world’s largest producer of COVID vaccines, less than 3% of Indians are fully inoculated against the disease.

      Well, that’s India, you might be saying to yourself. They have a Trump-like fanatic for a leader. Their medical system has long been inadequate. It’s an obvious place for COVID to have a final encore.

      In the United States, meanwhile, the number of cases has fallen dramatically since January. Hospitals no longer face overcrowding. More than a third of the population is fully vaccinated. The Biden administration is expecting that the country will return to some semblance of normality this July. But wasn’t it a similar complacency that proved India’s undoing? So, is India the ghost of America’s past or a taste of things to come.

      Our Herd Problem

      In early 2020, the scientific community went into hyperdrive to develop not one but several vaccines against COVID-19. In the US, the government and the medical community worked overtime to set up the infrastructure to get doses into arms around the country. Clinics and volunteers have jumped into action at a community level to make sure, as of this week, that 58% of adults have gotten at least one shot and over 70% of those older than 65 are fully vaccinated.

      But all this effort is now hitting up against resistance. Or hesitancy. Or barriers to access. States are cutting back on their vaccine orders from the federal authorities. Daily vaccination rates have dropped nearly 20% from last week. Employers are basically bribing people to get their shots. Millions of people aren’t even bothering to show up for their second doses.

      Barriers to access is perhaps the easiest problem to address. According to a recent survey, 72% of African-Americans and Latinos want to get vaccinated, but 63% reported that they didn’t have enough information about where to get a shot.

      While lack of information may well be the reason why some Americans have yet to sign up for their vaccinations, a hard-core resistance has developed to vaccines in this country — and COVID vaccines in particular. According to polling in April, around 45% of Republicans report that they’ll never get the vaccine. In all, as much as 37% of Americans are now saying that they’re going to opt-out. That means that tens of millions of doses are now chasing the remaining 5% of Americans who want to be vaccinated and haven’t yet gotten their first shot.

      Embed from Getty Images

      This resistance has nothing to do with a lack of information about how to sign up for a shot. It’s all about misinformation: that the vaccine is unnecessary, that it’s dangerous, that it comes with a microchip that will track you forever.

      Recently, Republican pollster Frank Luntz set up a focus group of vaccination-hesitant, Donald Trump voters to see what it would take to convince them to get shots. It was not an easy crowd. The husband of one of the participants had gotten seriously ill from COVID — and she stilldidn’t want to get vaccinated. In over two hours of discussion, Luntz brought in such vaccine-boosters as a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Senator Bill Cassidy, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — and still, the participants barely budged.

      Only after several emotional stories from former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and a final round of facts from the CDC official did they start to change their minds. “I would say I was probably 80% against when this started today,” one man said. “Now I’m probably 50-50-ish.”

      Luntz considered that a success. But in this age of Twitter, it’s not a workable model to expect skeptics to sit still for more than two hours while Republican Party grandees and noted doctors barrage one small group after another with stories and facts.

      A more representative reaction to such attempts by Republican Party influencers is what happened when Ivanka Trump posted selfies of her own vaccination. Twitter responses included: “‘Love your family but this is a huge NO for me & my family. Will be praying you do not get any of the horrible [side-effects].’ Others replied, ‘Please stop promoting this nonsense,’ ‘HARD PASS,’ and ‘Sorry, don’t trust it.’”

      Even more concerning, some anti-vaxxers are already planning to use fake vaccination cards to get into public events. Hundreds of sellers have appeared on eBay, Facebook and Twitter to hawk such cards. In this way, “live free or die” is quickly becoming “live free and kill.”

      In a nutshell, the US won’t achieve herd immunity because a significant portion of the herd is suffering from mad cow disease. Whatever the reasons for this obstinacy — anti-government, anti-science, anti-liberal — it will ensure that large pockets of this country will continue to play host to a very infectious disease.

      This resistance potentially puts the US in the same category as the Seychelles. An island nation in the Indian Ocean, the Seychelles has the highest rate of vaccination in the world. More than 60% of the population is fully vaccinated. But that still hasn’t been enough to ward off COVID. The Seychelles is now experiencing its largest outbreak, which, on a per capita basis, is even larger than what has overtaken India.

      The same thing might happen again in America, for instance in states with very low vaccination rates, like Mississippi and Idaho. When it comes to COVID-19, the US is only as strong as its weakest links.

      Perennial Pandemic

      When I lived in New York City, I used to wonder why my apartment was so overheated in the winter. It turns out that the heating systems in old buildings had been designed (or redesigned) to accommodate open windows in winter. During the flu pandemic in 1918-19, open windows and greater circulation of air were supposed to guard against infection.

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      Modern societies were once structured to handle periodic outbreaks of infectious diseases, from the steam heating in buildings to the TB sanatoriums that dotted the landscape. Americans braced for outbreaks with greater frequency than the cyclical reappearance of the cicadas. Three major waves of cholera struck the United States between 1832 and 1866. Typhoid killed 25,000 people in New York in 1906-07. The flu in 1918, diphtheria in the 1920s, polio in the first half of the 20th century: Americans became accustomed to infectious diseases as a way of life.

      COVID-19 isn’t going to disappear completely. It will return, again and again, just like variants of the flu or that other coronavirus, the common cold. If we’re lucky, it will come back in a less virulent form or the antibodies in our systems — those of us who received vaccinations — will render it so. If we’re not lucky, COVID-19 will generate ever more infectious strains that overwhelm us on a periodic basis.

      In the best-case scenario, what’s happening in India today is COVID-19’s last gasp. With the worst-case scenario, India is our future. So, don’t delete your Zoom app or give up your home office. Don’t throw away those masks. When it comes to infectious disease, we are all dependent on the herd.

      That’s great if you’re living in South Korea or New Zealand where compliance is second nature. But in America, the home of the free, the brave and the stupid, the herd may prove to be our collective undoing.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 213 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Today is a great day for America’: Biden removes his mask as CDC relaxes guidance – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      5.46pm EDT
      17:46

      Unvaccinated Latinos in the US want the shot – but have trouble with access

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      4.03pm EDT
      16:03

      ‘Today is a great day for America,’ Biden says as CDC relaxes mask guidance

      2.31pm EDT
      14:31

      Vaccinated people can participate in indoor activities without masks or distancing, CDC says

      2.09pm EDT
      14:09

      Government to ease up guidance on indoor mask-wearing

      1.22pm EDT
      13:22

      Today so far

      12.33pm EDT
      12:33

      Colonial Pipeline now reaching full operational capacity but ‘hiccups’ likely, Biden says

      Live feed

      Show

      5.46pm EDT
      17:46

      Unvaccinated Latinos in the US want the shot – but have trouble with access

      Latinos in the US are reporting the lowest rates of vaccination. According to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, “one-third of unvaccinated Hispanic adults say they want a vaccine as soon as possible, about twice the share as among unvaccinated Black and White adults.”
      Among unvaccinated Hispanic adults, nearly two-thirds were worried about missing work due to side effects, and half were worried they’d have to pay for it, the survey found. About 40% were worried they’d have to provide a social security number in order to get a vaccine and 35% were worried that signing up could affect them or their family’s immigration process – a holdover from the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule that held back green cards from immigrants who used public services.

      5.17pm EDT
      17:17

      Chip Roy, a hardline conservative Republican congressman of Texas will run to replace Liz Cheney as GOP conference chair.
      Roy had raised concerns that Elise Stefanik, the New York representative who is poised to ascend to conference chair after Republicans in the House ousted Cheney over her refusal to endorse false Trump’s election fraud conspiracy theory, is too moderate.
      Despite Stefanik’s more moderate record on policy issues, the congresswoman has whole-heartedly embraced Trump and Trumpism, earning the favor of the former president. Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus, wrote a letter to colleagues advising against electing Stefanik, based on her votes against Trump’s border wall and tax cuts, and her votes for climate action.
      Roy blamed members such as Stefanik for the party’s losses in 2018. It was members like her “playing footsie with Democrats on issues like HR5 (Equality Act) that led to Democrats steamrolling us in 2018” he said in his letter. The Equality Act would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity – most Republican lawmakers have staunchly opposed the anti-discrimination law, but Stefanik voted for it once.

      Updated
      at 5.29pm EDT

      5.01pm EDT
      17:01

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      The CDC said fully vaccinated Americans no longer had to wear masks in most settings, marking a crucial moment in the country’s return to normalcy more than a year after the start of the coronavirus pandemic. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic,” said CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
      Joe Biden celebrated the new CDC mask guidance, saying, “Today is a great day for America.” The president delivered remarks on the CDC news in the White House Rose Garden, notably not wearing a mask as he spoke to the American people. “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,” Biden said.
      Biden said the Colonial Pipeline is now reaching full operational capacity, after a ransomware attack shut down the pipeline for several days. The president warned that it may take a few days to see the effect of the pipeline coming back online, as there could be “hiccups” as it resumes normal operations. Several east coast states have suffered gasoline shortages in recent days, as Americans went into panic-buying mode because of the shutdown.
      House speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned Republicans’ “sick” efforts to downplay the violence of the 6 January insurrection. The Democratic speaker addressed the comments from Andrew Clyde, who said yesterday that the footage of the insurrection looked like “a normal tourist visit”. “I don’t know a normal day around here when people are threatening to hang the vice-president of the United States or shoot the speaker in the forehead,” Pelosi said. “It was beyond denial. It fell into the range of sick.”
      Liz Cheney did not rule out the possibility of launching a presidential bid against Donald Trump to prevent him from returning to the White House. Speaking to the Today show shortly after she was removed as House Republican conference chair, Cheney said of Trump, “He must not ever again be anywhere close to the Oval Office.”

      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      Updated
      at 5.05pm EDT

      4.43pm EDT
      16:43

      House speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN that she will not be relaxing the rule requiring masks in the chamber because not all members have been vaccinated, even though they have been eligible for months.

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      Speaker Nancy Pelosi told me “no” she isn’t changing the rule requiring masks on the House floor.“No,” Pelosi said. “Are they all vaccinated?”

      May 13, 2021

      The Democratic speaker said two weeks ago that about 75% of House members have been vaccinated, a number that was virtually unchanged from a month earlier.

      4.31pm EDT
      16:31

      The mayor of Washington said she and her public health team are reviewing the new CDC recommendations to determine whether to relax the city’s guidance on masks.
      “Consistent with past practice, we are immediately reviewing the CDC guidance and will update DC Health guidance accordingly,” Muriel Bowser said on Twitter.
      The Democratic mayor added it is “critical that every resident, worker and visitor get vaccinated to help us crush the virus”.

      Mayor Muriel Bowser
      (@MayorBowser)
      1/ Consistent with past practice, we are immediately reviewing the CDC guidance and will update DC Health guidance accordingly.

      May 13, 2021

      4.20pm EDT
      16:20

      Joe Biden took a few questions from reporters after concluding his prepared remarks on the new mask guidance from the CDC.
      Asked about his meeting with Senate Republicans today to discuss his infrastructure plan, the president said they had a “very, very good” conversation.
      “I am very optimistic that we can reach a reasonable agreement,” Biden said, adding that both sides have engaged in a “good-faith effort” to find a compromise on an infrastructure package.
      With that, Biden and Kamala Harris walked out of the Rose Garden without wearing masks.

      4.15pm EDT
      16:15

      Joe Biden reiterated the new CDC guidance that fully vaccinated people are no longer required to wear masks in most settings.
      “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,” Biden said.
      The president was also careful to encourage people to be kind to those who still feel more comfortable wearing masks.
      “We’ve had too much conflict, too much bitterness, too much anger, too much politicization of this issue about wearing masks,” Biden said. “Let’s put it to rest. Let’s remember we’re all Americans. Let’s remember that we are all in this together.”

      Updated
      at 4.17pm EDT

      4.10pm EDT
      16:10

      Joe Biden celebrated the new CDC guidance on mask-wearing, but he also emphasized that the country had much more work to do to get the virus completely under control.
      “The safest thing for the country is for everyone to get vaccinated,” Biden said.
      The president noted it was easier than ever to get vaccinated, as all American adults are now eligible to receive a shot.
      “We’re still losing too many Americans because we still have too many unvaccinated people,” Biden said.

      4.07pm EDT
      16:07

      Joe Biden noted that this “great day” has come at a great cost to country, which has lost more than 580,000 people to coronavirus.
      The president expressed his condolences to all Americans who had lost loved ones to coronavirus, and he expressed hope that their memories would soon bring more happiness than sadness.

      4.03pm EDT
      16:03

      ‘Today is a great day for America,’ Biden says as CDC relaxes mask guidance

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris walked out to the Rose Garden without wearing masks, after the CDC announced that fully vaccinated people did not have to wear masks in most settings.
      As Biden walked up to the podium with an uncovered face, Harris could be heard telling him, “Great smile.”
      Biden began his remarks by saying, “Today is a great day for America in our long battle against coronavirus.”

      Joe Biden
      (@JoeBiden)
      Today is a great day for America in our long battle with COVID-19. Just a few hours ago, the CDC announced they are no longer recommending that fully vaccinated people need to wear masks.

      May 13, 2021

      The president said this “great milestone” was made possible by the country’s great success in getting hundreds of millions of vaccine doses to the American people.
      As of today, more than 250 million shots have been administered since Biden took office in January.

      Updated
      at 4.07pm EDT

      3.58pm EDT
      15:58

      The White House Rose Garden is all set up for Joe Biden’s remarks on the coronavirus pandemic and the CDC’s new guidance on mask-wearing.

      Steve Holland
      (@steveholland1)
      Nice day in the Rose Garden pic.twitter.com/FBMi7DjzC5

      May 13, 2021

      It’s 70 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny in Washington, so it’s a beautiful day to announce that fully vaccinated people no longer have to wear masks in most settings.
      Biden was supposed to start speaking about 15 minutes ago, but as per usual, he is running late, so stay tuned for updates.

      3.41pm EDT
      15:41

      Shelley Moore Capito said her group of Senate Republicans had a “very productive” meeting with Joe Biden to discuss the president’s infrastructure plan.
      “We did talk specifics,” Capito said. “And the president asked has asked us to come back and rework an offer so that he could then react to that and then re-offer to us, so we’re very encouraged.”
      She added that she was “grateful to the president and his staff for the give and take that we shared in the Oval Office”. Capito described Biden as being “very much desirous of striking a deal”.

      Updated
      at 3.47pm EDT

      3.31pm EDT
      15:31

      Joe Biden and Republican senators took their masks off during their infrastructure meeting after hearing about the new CDC guidance, according to Shelley Moore Capito.
      “We heard all about it,” Capito said of the CDC update after leaving the meeting. “The president took his [mask] off too.”

      Jennifer Jacobs
      (@JenniferJJacobs)
      “We did,” @SenCapito tells me when I asked of they all took their masks off in Oval. “We heard all about it” she said of new CDC guidance. pic.twitter.com/LHJM5BlWv9

      May 13, 2021

      Updated
      at 3.37pm EDT

      3.13pm EDT
      15:13

      Ben Wakana, a member of the White House pandemic response team, said the CDC could relax the mask guidance for vaccinated Americans because the vaccines have proven effective and those who have been vaccinated are unlikely to spread coronavirus.

      Ben Wakana
      (@benwakana46)
      Here are the reasons why the masks can come off now:1. Vaccines are effective in the real world2. Vaccines work against the variants3. Vaccinated people are unlikely to spread COVID

      May 13, 2021

      3.05pm EDT
      15:05

      Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was seen exiting the chamber without a mask on, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed its mask guidance for fully vaccinated Americans.
      “Free at last,” the Republican leader told reporters on Capitol Hill.

      Nicholas Fandos
      (@npfandos)
      “Free at last,” says a maskless Mitch McConnell, as he exits the Senate for the week. pic.twitter.com/YfbWekZ9BW

      May 13, 2021

      2.55pm EDT
      14:55

      The White House has informed staffers that they no longer need to wear masks at work if they are fully vaccinated, according to the Washington Post.

      Tyler Pager
      (@tylerpager)
      NEWS: The White House just sent an email to staff that masks are no longer required on campus for those who are fully vaccinated.

      May 13, 2021

      2.50pm EDT
      14:50

      This is the exact wording from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the new guidance for fully vaccinated Americans:

      Risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection is minimal for fully vaccinated people. The risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from fully vaccinated people to unvaccinated people is also reduced. Therefore, fully vaccinated people can resume activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance. Fully vaccinated people should also continue to wear a well-fitted mask in correctional facilities and homeless shelters. …
      CDC prevention measures continue to apply to all travelers, including those who are vaccinated. All travelers are required to wear a mask on all 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.

      2.42pm EDT
      14:42

      This new graphic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrates the importance of the agency’s new guidance for fully vaccinated people.
      On the righthand side of the visual, it shows that fully vaccinated people can safely go without masks in almost all settings.

      Ed O’Keefe
      (@edokeefe)
      HELPFUL VISUAL AID via @CDCgov: pic.twitter.com/PYfmEbgwu1

      May 13, 2021

      2.38pm EDT
      14:38

      Despite the encouraging new guidance, Dr Rochelle Walensky said fully vaccinated Americans should continue to wear masks when on modes of public transportation, such as airplanes, buses or trains.
      But fully vaccinated people are not required to wear masks in almost any other setting, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
      Asked how fully vaccinated people should handle situations where they are not sure if everyone around them has been vaccinated, Walensky noted it is the unvaccinated people (not the vaccinated people) who are assuming some risk in that scenario. More