Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 17 2020 07:33pm)
Honestly, I think that the CDC should assemble a unified framework/guideline, but that the ultimate decision about reopening and the toughness of the safety measures should be decided at the local level. The federal agencies and authorities should stay the fuck out of that decision.
Not a fan of Kemp/the state government trying to prevent Atlanta/a city from making masks mandatory either. At the end of the day, this pandemic is very local in nature, the situation on the ground can vary a ton from county to county. Mandating masks can make a ton of sense for Atlanta and be unnecessary for rural Georgia, and neither of these should make a decision for the other. Making these decisions on the most granular, local level possible also helps depoliticize the mask issue.
It signifies to me that we're unprepared of global pandemics across the board, and this simply can't be reduced to a right/left wing talking point or "Orange Man bad". The current CDC guidelines do, I think, take into consideration what you're saying about the uniqueness of different places. From a cursory reading of the guidelines, they seem to be separated into 3 categories based on level of community transmission. The higher the risk/community transmission, the more stringent and expansive the guidelines become.
It'll be interesting to see how the CDC continue to clarify these recommendations in the coming weeks, as they've delayed their update today. This, of course, on the backdrop of Trump making it so that Covid-19 reporting goes to the White House instead of the CDC now.