Joseph Prezioso/Getty
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday released new guidelines on outdoor mask-wearing, greenlighting fully vaccinated people to engage in outdoor activities, including running, hiking, and walking—without a mask—if they are alone or with members of their household. Attending small outdoor gatherings and dining outdoors without a mask are also considered safe, federal officials said.
But in situations where crowds are likely and social distancing presents a challenge, masking, even if fully vaccinated, is still recommended.
“Today is another day we can take another step to the normalcy of before,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said in a White House news conference.
“The examples today show that when you are fully vaccinated, you can return to many activities safely,” Walensky added. “And most of them, outdoors and unmasked, can begin to get back to normal. The more people who are vaccinated, the more steps we can take toward spending time with people we love, doing the things we love to enjoy.”
The updated guidance comes as nearly half of the country reports being vaccinated with at least the first dose. But public health experts remain cautious, with vaccination rates slowing recently following months of rapid growth, while some areas of the country continue to see alarming surges of the virus and its new variants.
It’s been long established that outdoor contact poses significantly less risk in the spread of COVID-19 than indoors. But in recent weeks, questions over the necessity of outdoor mask-wearing have sparked some debate, with those on the right expressing special hostility towards the measure. On Monday, before the CDC’s announcement, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson went so far as to instruct viewers to contact child protective services if they see a kid wearing a mask outdoors. He also compared the practice of children wearing masks outside to child abuse.
“What you’re looking at is abuse,” Carlson said, “it’s child abuse and you are morally obligated to attempt to prevent it. If it’s your own child being abused, then act accordingly.” (Just to be clear: unnecessarily calling child protective services, in situations where the child is not in direct danger, can have long-lasting, traumatizing effects on both children and families.)
But Tucker and similarly-minded conservatives who are now professing outrage over outdoor masks appear to deliberately misinterpret the CDC’s previous guidelines, which never mandated strict outdoor mask-wearing. Instead, the CDC has always acknowledged that the outdoors provides greater ventilation—a key component to reducing COVID transmission—and wearing a mask while you are outside by yourself or with others in your household may not be necessary.
