Hexbear refuses to let me post the link in the URL field. And the article was the only one I found that laid things out so clearly. The American media simply does not give much of a fuck about covid anymore.
CDC: Nearly Every American Can Drop Wearing Masks Indoors
COVID-19 transmission levels, however, remain high across the majority of the country.
The CDC is really on a pre-election roll. This is from a few days ago...
The CDC has decided to stop tracking and releasing COVID-19 case and death data on a daily basis. These metrics will now be updated only once a week, the agency said today.
Friendly reminder that the CDC isn't stupid not are its scientists on pure ideology when it comes to knowing what the country actually needs to do in terms of public health.
Where ideology comes in is (1) leadership, which still has a bunch of Trump-appointed conservatives and (2) a pervading ideology to "work around" bullshit psychoanalysis of what Americans will do vs. what they're supposed to do, and always erring on the side of the former. Do people want to wear masks and will they do so consistently? Some fuck in the CDC says no, so they temper their recommendations even though they know every single person should wear one. Repeat ad infinitum and with full cover from leadership.
Shit is fucked, yo.
Which ironically is the exact opposite of what you need to do. If you know that Americans won’t wear masks, you should tell them that everyone should be wearing an N95 even outside so that more people wear them more often.
Less people are going to wear masks than you tell to wear masks, so tell EVERYONE to do it!
Yes, which is where I think the "guard rails" of capital kick in. This approach is favored by capital, which has its tendrils in everything and is threatening to gurgle and die because of lockdowns and masks etc etc, and so "well I guess we should do what people will already do" is allowable discourse by the higher-ups, but "IT'S A PANDEMIC FROM AN AEROSOLIZED VIRUS OBVIOUSLY WEAR THE MASKS" is frowned upon.