CDC mask guidance met with hostility by leading Republicans

[left-of-center2012]

SALT LAKE CITY — One of the Republican Party’s most prominent rising stars is mocking new government recommendations calling for more widespread use of masks to blunt a coronavirus surge. “Did you not get the CDC’s memo?” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joked Wednesday before an almost entirely unmasked audience of activists and lawmakers crammed into an indoor hotel ballroom in Salt Lake City.
“I don’t see you guys complying.”

From Texas to South Dakota, Republican leaders responded with hostility and defiance to updated masking guidance from public health officials, who advise that even fully vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors if they live in areas with high rates of virus transmission. The backlash reopened the culture war over pandemic restrictions just as efforts to persuade unvaccinated Americans to get shots appeared to be making headway.

Egged on by former President Donald Trump, the response reflects deep resistance among many GOP voters to restrictions aimed at containing a virus they feel poses minimal personal threat. Many Republican leaders are blocking preventative measures, potentially making it harder to tame virus outbreaks in conservative communities.

The resistance has real implications for a country desperate to emerge from the pandemic. Beyond vaccinations, there are few tools other than mask-wearing and social distancing to contain the spread of the delta variant, which studies have shown to be far more contagious than the original strain.

https://triblive.com/news/politics-election/cdc-mask-guidance-met-with-hostility-by-leading-republicans/

[Phoenix61]

1. Is it wrong of me to hope he's one of the

few break through cases that ends up a fatality? Is it? I’m just so confused. I thought a was a better person. I’m just so over self-entitled, narcissistic assholes who are willing to risk everyone else’s life for their own aggrandizement.

[LisaL]

2. DeSantis had J&J.

I doubt he would end up as a fatality, but a nice breakthrough case of covid is certainly not out of the question. Especially considering his behavior, mass meetings while maskless and so on.

[Arkansas Granny]

3. I blame TFG for making mask wearing political. How many thousands of lives have been lost

in order to pander to his ego and the willful ignorance of his cult. It has put all of us at risk.