The masked sociologist

I see a lot of takes to the effect that Democratic governors deciding to end mask mandates even as the CDC maintains its guidance for masking in schools and other publications is a case of Democrats in Disarray™. No.

Legally, constitutionally actually, the CDC only provides guidance about  public health measures which are the domain of the states, based on the police power as reserved to them by the 10th Amendment. CDC is not a political agency, it is a scientific agency, and it has no regulatory authority per se. (It does require that states and health care providers submit certain data to it.) Joe Biden and other administration officials do not tell the CDC what guidance to issue. It acts independently in that regard. (And BTW the White House doesn't tell the FDA what drugs to approve either.) Of course, the president can fire the CDC director if he really doesn't like what she does but the current president has shown no proclivity to act in that manner.

The states and municipalities are free to follow the guidance or not. I do not have a problem with that in principle because the CDC issues a single national guidance and local circumstances can vary. I do have a problem with it in practice because many (not all) Republican governors have been irresponsible but that's another issue. There are obviously tradeoffs to epidemic mitigation measures, many people don't like wearing masks and it may be something of an obstacle to pedagogy and a good school atmosphere. I taught a class on Monday wearing a mask, and no, I didn't like it. It's not that big of  a deal but if there isn't serious risk it's good not to require it and lifting the requirements will also, hopefully, calm down the political atmosphere and make people feel more comfortable. People who are more comfortable wearing a mask should continue to do so of course, and everybody should respect their decision.

The fact is we're in a much better place now than we were a year ago. About 70% of the population is vaccinated, many others have some natural immunity from exposure, there are more effective and reasonably inexpensive treatments for people who do get sick. Nature finally did us a favor by coming up with a variant that is highly contagious but less likely to cause severe disease, which means more people now have natural immunity without having been hospitalized. The storm of infections is receding in most parts of the country and what's most important now is to keeping getting more people vaccinated. That's our way out of this. 

So if a governor, such as my governor Ned Lamont wants to make the decision to lift mandates contrary to the CDC guidance, in my view that's perfectly defensible. It doesn't represent any political rift with the president. Jen Psaki says the administration continues to encourage people to follow the CDC guidance but that's as far as they go. Of course it will be hard to reinstate mandates should matters take a turn for the worse but you have to do it at some point, and now may be the time.