Vice President Kamala Harris warned Americans Tuesday that if they did not get vaccinated, they would face continued mask mandates.
“No one likes wearing masks… people need to get vaccinated. That’s the only way we’re going to cut this off,” she said at a White House event. “Nobody likes wearing a mask.”
Harris’s comments represent a sharp turnaround for the White House, which previously told Americans that if they were vaccinated they would not need to wear a mask.
“It’s vaxxed or masked,” Biden said in a White House promotional video posted on social media in May.
Fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask in most settings. The choice is yours: get vaccinated or wear a mask until you do.
Posted by The White House on Friday, May 14, 2021
White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the Biden administration’s early optimistic appraisal of the fight against the coronavirus throughout the summer, including a 4th of July event declaring “independence from this virus.”
“When he made those comments back in May we were dealing with a very different strain of the virus than we are today,” she said.
Psaki said that President Biden would wear masks according to the CDC guidance, including in areas where he would travel.
“We will of course be abiding by every aspect of the CDC guidelines on masking that they will provide this afternoon,” she said.
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