CDC gives unvaccinated a nudge with new Covid-19 guidance
The Centers for Disease Control seemed to catch many off-guard yesterday when it altered its Covid-19 guidance for fully vaccinated people. Essentially, you can now resume something close to life as normal if you’re vaccinated, according to the agency. Notably, that means fully vaccinated people can ditch their masks in most settings.
Given that there’s nothing in the new guidance about identifying who is actually vaccinated, numerous commentators are rightfully wondering about the likelihood that unvaccinated people will now stop masking despite not getting the jab. Public health expert Leana Wen summed up the issue well in an appearance on CNN Thursday night.
I’m not a doctor, but I do have a few thoughts on this from a communications perspective.
This is the CDC doing its job.
Note the rationale underlying this guidance:
Covid-19 vaccines are effective at preventing Covid-19 disease, especially severe illness and death; and
Covid-19 vaccines reduce the risk of people spreading Covid-19.
If both of these are true, it follows that masking is unnecessary for fully vaccinated people. On the flip side, it means unvaccinated people should keep masking. The CDC is making those two conclusions explicit with this guidance.
The CDC provides the public with the best health information available. As Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns & Money put it, “public health authorities should tell the truth as they best understand it rather than engaging in eleven-dimensional psychological chess.” This is doing just that.
The goal here is to get people over the finish line.
When it comes to demand, the U.S. population breaks down into basically three groups:
People who badly want the vaccine;
People who are open to getting the vaccine, but haven’t yet; and
People who are never going to get the vaccine.
At this point, we’ve likely serviced most of the first group. Persuading the third group would take either significant investment or coercion. Now we’re working to vaccinate as many people as possible in the middle group.
People could fall into the second group for a number of reasons. It could be as simple as a fear of needles. They may view the process as inconvenient. They may be procrastinating on getting the required second dose.
Importantly, this second group isn’t refusing the vaccine. They just need the right nudge in that direction.
So what is that nudge?
The CDC wants that second group to know that the vaccines are safe and effective. Getting vaccinated represents the fastest path back to normal life.
If the persuadable portion of the population internalizes that message, it should boost vaccine uptake. Conversely, that message remains muddled so long as fully vaccinated individuals have to continue living as though we don’t know the answers to the important questions about the vaccine.
To be sure, bad actors can and will exploit this honor system unless government authorities implement verification systems. It shouldn’t come as a surprise if businesses like grocery stores still require masks for the time being for that very reason. Ultimately, though, the CDC appears to be betting that the new guidance will help convert enough people over to the vaccinated lifestyle to justify the move.
