NY Times, Washington
A week of public health reversals from the White House and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has left Americans with pandemic whiplash, sowing confusion about coronavirus vaccines and mask wearing as the Delta variant upends what people thought they knew about how to stay safe.
Vaccines remain effective and highly protective against hospitalisation and death, even among those infected with the extremely contagious Delta variant. Mask wearing prevents transmission of the virus to those most at risk.
But the crisis that President Joe Biden once thought he had under control is changing shape faster than the country can adapt. An evolving virus, new scientific discoveries, deep ideological divides and 18 months of ever-changing pandemic messaging have left Americans sceptical of public health advice. So although the White House had promised a "summer of joy", the nation is instead caught in a summer of confusion.
"While we desperately want to be done with this pandemic, Covid-19 is clearly not done with us, and so our battle must last a little longer," Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, told reporters on Monday (Aug 2). "This is hard. This is heavy. But we are in this together."
Monday was another day that underscored the cross-currents for the nation's leaders as their efforts at a disciplined public health campaign collided yet again with the chaotic nature of the pandemic. Instead of a consistent message, the result was another dizzying jumble of news stories and divergent announcements.
In Louisiana, a state with one of the lowest vaccination rates, Governor John Bel Edwards reinstated an indoor mask mandate, as did health officials in San Francisco and six other Bay Area counties. But in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio declined to do so, even though such a move would have been in line with CDC guidelines.
