Atlanta Follows Biden’s Surrender, Issues Indoor Mask Mandate with Fines for Violators

“Public health experts overwhelmingly agree, and data has proved, that wearing a face-covering helps slow the spread of this deadly virus,” Bottoms said.

“As COVID-19 rates increase, we must remain vigilant, wear a mask, follow CDC guidelines and other measures to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our communities,” she added.

The order follows the CDC’s updated guidance requiring fully vaccinated individuals to wear a mask indoors “in public if you are in an area of substantial or high transmission.” The Biden administration has been unable to explain how the updated guidance does not undermine their narrative, as they have been telling the American people for months that vaccines are the primary way for Americans to ditch the mask and return to an era of pre-pandemic normalcy.

“The public health leaders in our administration have made the determination, based on data, that that is a way to make sure they’re protected,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday after a reporter asked why vaccinated individuals need to wear masks, as officials adamantly contend vaccines do, in fact, work.

A handful of lawmakers have since pointed out that the CDC’s mask guidance appears to be based, in part, on a study of a vaccine not even used in the United States:

As Breitbart News reported:

Indeed, the CDC did, in fact, feature a study that was based, partially, on a vaccine not yet approved in the U.S., rendering that particular finding inapplicable in the states.

“We used a Delta variant live virus isolate to test susceptibility to vaccine elicited neutralising antibodies in individuals vaccinated with ChAdOx-1 or BNT162b2,” the research reads. The first vaccine referenced is the Oxford-developed AstraZeneca vaccine, not used in the U.S., and the second is the Pfizer vaccine, one of the main vaccines used in the U.S. under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Notably, none of the vaccines in the U.S. have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Despite that, the CDC presumably used the study as a partial framework for its updated guidance, which instructs fully vaccinated people to mask up.

The CDC said (emphasis added):

A study from Houston, Texas observed that Delta caused a significantly higher rate of breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people compared with infections from other variants, but noted that only 6.5% of all COVID-19 cases occurred in fully vaccinated individuals. Studies from India with vaccines not authorized for use in the United States have noted relatively high viral loads and larger cluster sizes associated with infections with Delta, regardless of vaccination status. These early data suggest that breakthrough Delta infections are transmissible. Unpublished data are consistent with this, and additional data collection and studies are underway to understand the level and duration of transmissibility from Delta vaccine breakthrough infections in the United States and other settings.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) also made that observation as he blasted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) mask rule on Wednesday. “I just left speaking with Dr. Monahan from the House. He said he used the CDC recommendation on a report that hasn’t been printed yet,” McCarthy said.

“He did not know that the report is based upon India, about a vaccine that’s not approved in America, and now he did not know that it didn’t even pass peer-review,” he continued.

“That’s why vaccinated people in this house now have to wear a mask. There is no science, but I guess the Speaker must have not known that. Why wouldn’t the Speaker know the facts?” McCarthy added.