CDC pleads for caution, but governors may be done listening

WASHINGTON — Caught seemingly off guard by the rapidity with which Democratic elected officials in states on both coasts have rolled back pandemic restrictions in recent days, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky urged continued caution on Wednesday, even as she acknowledged that approach is falling out of favor.

“We’re not there yet,” Walensky said at a briefing of the White House pandemic response team during which she and others faced a series of questions about how long mask mandates — the most potent symbol of pandemic life — would remain in place. The CDC said last May that vaccinated people no longer had to mask indoors, then reversed itself as the Delta wave arrived that summer. It also said that students should wear masks in schools, a point of increasing contention of late.

Until very recently, Democrats were largely in accord with the CDC regarding the need for mask and vaccine mandates, whereas Republican governors have been ignoring federal scientific guidance on coronavirus precautions since mid-2020, when then-President Donald Trump called on them to do so.

But with the Omicron surge of COVID-19 receding and most Americans telling pollsters that they are impatient to return to pre-pandemic life, many of the Democratic governors who once followed CDC recommendations are now bucking the agency on masking in schools or in other establishments, like concert venues.

The week began with Delaware and New Jersey lifting school mask mandates. Other states have taken similar approaches, with, most significantly, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul allowing the state’s vaccinate-or-mask requirement on businesses to expire on Wednesday. (The masking requirement remains in place for schools and on public transportation.)

“We are not where we were in early December. New Yorkers did the right thing to get through the winter surge,” Hochul wrote on Twitter in announcing the move.

Long eager to get beyond the pandemic, the White House now finds itself in a difficult position: It does not want to chide Democratic governors for making decisions they feel are justified. At the same time, its commitment to follow scientific guidance means it cannot move ahead of the CDC, which is not ready to lift restrictions.

“Our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high,” Walensky said on Wednesday, even as she seemed to concede that her agency was increasingly out of step with many Democrats.

“We’ve always said that these decisions are going to have to be made at the local level,” she said.

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