Poll: 42% Still Believe in Wearing Masks Outside Despite CDC Update

A significant portion of the public still believes in wearing a mask outside regardless of guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to a recent survey.

The survey indicates that forty-two percent of respondents believe everyone in their area should continue to wear a mask regardless of the CDC guidelines.

Of the respondents, 39 percent said everyone should follow the CDC guidelines that state masks are only necessary outdoors when in crowds compared to only 19 percent of respondents who actually believe “everyone should do [what] they want regardless of guidelines.”

Of those who believe in continuing to wear masks, broken down by party, the results were almost even; 36 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of Democrats want everyone around them to wear masks.

Before the poll, the CDC had updated its guidance to state that vaccinated individuals do not need to wear a mask outdoors except in crowded areas. Last week, the CDC made an additional update, saying fully vaccinated people “no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance” and only must do so when required by laws, rules, or regulations, including local businesses and workplace guidance.

The CDC defines a fully vaccinated person as someone who received a second dose in the two-dose series of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna or two weeks after the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

Since the latest update in guidelines, major business chains have revised their own guidelines. Chains such as Trader Joe’s, Walmart, and Target have announced they will no longer require customers to wear masks; they did not mention a state by state policy, whereas Costco announced its policy updates will be on a state by state basis.

Last week, the fully vaccinated far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) told her 8.8 million Instagram followers she will “probably” continue to wear a mask from “time to time” despite what the CDC says. She jokingly said masks are also “a nice accessory when you don’t want to do all your makeup.”

The Hill-HarrisX survey was conducted online among 918 registered U.S. between May 10 and May 11. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.23 percentage points. Results were weighted for age, gender, region, race/ethnicity, income, political party, education, ideology, and area type where necessary to align with their actual proportions in the population.