Fauci says guidance can “start being more liberal”

Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday said he was open to relaxing indoor masking rules as more Americans get vaccinated against the virus, just two days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention belatedly emphasized the danger of airborne transmission.

Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser for the pandemic, said that as vaccinations climb, “we do need to start being more liberal” in terms of rules for wearing masks indoors, although he noted that the nation was still averaging about 43,000 cases of the virus daily. “We’ve got to get it much, much lower than that,” he said.

On Friday, the CDC updated its guidance about how the coronavirus spreads, stating that people can inhale airborne virus even when they are more than 6 feet away from an infected individual. Previously, the agency had said that most infections were acquired through “close contact, not airborne transmission.”

The update brought the agency in line with evidence of the danger from airborne droplets that public health researchers had noted as the pandemic unfolded last year and, according to some experts, also underscored the urgency for the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue standards for employers to address potential airborne hazards in the workplace.

Fauci’s comments Sunday came in response to a question about comments Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, made recently. He said relaxing indoor mask mandates would give public health officials “the credibility to implement them” again in the fall or winter if cases surge again.