It’s become evidently clear that mask-wearing is political theater as President Joe Biden continues to wear a mask outdoors despite the latest public health guidance stating he doesn’t need to. Reporters and political officials have questioned Biden’s mask-wearing practices over the last few months, particularly when he is seen wearing a mask outside and standing alone. Why should anyone else listen to the guidelines proposed by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention when President Biden doesn’t?
The CDC recently issued updated masking guidance and advised people that they can forgo wearing masks in small groups outside, even if they have not received a COVID-19 vaccine. But Biden, fully vaccinated, has continued wearing a face-covering outdoors even with no one or just his wife near him. After the guidance was updated, a White House reporter asked Biden what message he was sending by wearing a mask outside alone. “By watching me take it off and not put it back on until I get inside,” Biden replied.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s ‘top immunologist,’ and Biden Administration officials have continued advocating mask-wearing even if they’ve gotten the vaccine because of the “virus variants” that have been circulating in the United States. But others have argued against the Biden Administration’s caution, adding that there’s “no point” in getting vaccinated if they have to continue living and abiding by the same guidelines as those who have not been vaccinated.
During a recent CNN’s “State of the Union,” Jake Tapper interviewed White House adviser Anita Dunn and asked her why Biden is undermining the public confidence in the COVID-19 vaccines by continuing to wear a mask outdoors. Health experts have been suggesting that Biden alter his behavior to reflect how vaccines can “lead to a return to normal.”
“Should the president start following these guidelines and stop wearing a mask outdoors, stop wearing a mask indoors when with small groups of other vaccinated Americans, to show the American people there is a benefit to getting the vaccine, you can take the mask off?” Tapper asked.
In response, Dunn said that Biden takes the CDC guidelines “very seriously” but that he takes extra precautions because he is the president of the United States. She said that Biden still wears his mask outdoors because it has become such a “matter of habit” and that he has always taken his role of ‘following the science’ very seriously.
“But I would say that people should follow the CDC guidelines and they should take advantage of getting the vaccine, getting fully vaccinated, and taking that mask off, particularly as the weather grows so beautiful and we all want to be outside. As we move forward, I think that you will see more and more people enjoying that freedom, getting the vaccine, and realizing it’s one big step towards normalcy in this country,” Dunn said.
Dunn’s response, however, doesn’t answer the questions as to which “science” Biden is following and why he doesn’t seem to be following the new guidance. He even called his continued mask-wearing outdoors a “patriotic responsibility” and “small precaution.”
As pointed out by Sen. Rand Paul, there have been almost no hospitalizations and deaths of a person who has been vaccinated and contracted COVID-19. “All I’m saying is if you want me to wear a mask for two more years or three more years or for the rest of my life, why don’t you show me evidence? Why shouldn’t the burden be on the government to show us evidence that we are still somehow transmitting this?” Paul asked.
It’s clear that President Biden is simply virtue signaling at this point and you know it’s bad when even CNN’s Jake Tapper is questioning the president for sending mixed signals over mask use. It is not a “patriotic responsibility” or “compassion” to wear a mask outdoors when the CDC doesn’t even back it up, it is performance art.
