A professional runner shared on Twitter that she was yelled at for not wearing a mask while running passed someone outside.
Amelia Boone, a world champion obstacle racer, shared the incident in a tweet thread on April 25.
‘Today I got yelled at on my run for passing by someone and not pulling a buff/mask up. If it was April, 2020, I’m with you,’ she wrote.
‘But now that we have a good idea how COVID spreads, I think it’s time we normalize not wearing masks outside.’
Boone, who says she is fully vaccinated, wrote that she is ‘absolutely 100% pro mask’ and will likely ‘continue wearing them on planes indefinitely, for example’.
Amelia Boone (pictured), a world champion obstacle racer, shared that she was yelled at on April 25 while not wearing a mask on her run outside
‘Today I got yelled at on my run for passing by someone and not pulling a buff/mask up. If it was April, 2020, I’m with you,’ she wrote. ‘But now that we have a good idea how COVID spreads, I think it’s time we normalize not wearing masks outside’
‘I’m all for courtesy. But our county lifted the outdoor mask order and science just doesn’t support it,’ she added.
And she’s right. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that fully vaccinated Americans can now safely go without masks outside.
‘If you are fully vaccinated, things are much safer for you,’ said CDC Director Dr Rochelle Walensky during a Tuesday White House press briefing.
‘There are many situations in which Americans do not need to wear masks if they are fully vaccinated, particularly outdoors.’
As long as they are outside, people who are fully vaccinated can now exercise, go to small gatherings or restaurants with people who are vaccinated or unvaccinated.
It comes amid mounting evidence – finally acknowledged by the CDC on Tuesday – that outdoor transmission of coronavirus is exceedingly rare, accounting for less than 10 per cent of cases.
Those risks are mainly linked to crowded events that can turn into super-spreader events, or people who were in close range of one another.
However, in crowded places like concerts, parades or sporting events, even vaccinated people should still wear masks, the CDC’s new guidance says.
‘I’m all for courtesy. But our county lifted the outdoor mask order and science just doesn’t support it,’ Boone (pictured) added. And she’s right. Last week, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated Americans can now safely go without masks outside
The guidance is merely that – advice about what the health agency has deemed safe – and is not enforceable. It’s up to states, counties and cities to issue mask mandates and other restrictions.
Several states, including Massachusetts and Kentucky rolled back their guidelines on mask-wearing outdoors last week, in anticipation of the update to the guidelines.
In Connecticut, COVID restrictions will end on May 19, but Governor Ned Lamont is advising people to still wear masks indoors.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that the Big Apple would fully reopen on July 1. His announcement was followed by Gov Andrew Cuomo who said the state’s bars and restaurants can increase their capacity beginning May 7.
In Colorado, where Boone resides, Gov Jared Polis announced Sunday that the indoor mask order remains in effect for all schools statewide and certain other settings.
For counties with greater than 35 cases per 100,000 people, the indoor mask order applies to groups of ten or more unvaccinated people indoors and there remains no outdoor mask order.
The order was also amended to allow indoor spaces where more than 10 people are present to go without masks, so long as at least 80 per cent of those individuals are fully vaccinated.
Unvaccinated people can shed their masks too, if they are outside exercising or at small outdoor gatherings with vaccinated friends and families.
Officials had faced scrutiny over saying that the risk of transmission of coronavirus is extremely low outside, while continuing to tell unvaccinated people to keep their masks on while outdoors.
‘There is increasing data that suggests that most of transmission is happening indoors rather than outdoors, less than 10 per cent of documented transmissions in many studies have occurred outdoors, we also know there’s almost a 20-fold increase of transmission in the indoor setting versus the outdoor setting,’ Walensky explained.
‘That coupled with the fact that we now have 37 per cent over the age of 18 fully vaccinated and the fact that case rates now are starting to come down motivated our change.’
As of Monday morning, 44.3 per cent of the American population has received one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Only 31.6 per cent of the population are fully vaccinated.
