illinois all joined other states today in lifting mask mandates either in schools or indoor public spaces entirely. it now puts them frankly in conflict with the biden administration s guidance, which still calls for masking indoors, and that s regardless of vaccination status. cdc director defended the agency stance today. we are working on that guidance. we are working on, you know, following the trends for the moment. what i will say, though, is, you know, our hospitalizations are still high. our death rates are still high. so as we work towards that and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet. so, look, who are we supposed to listen to? is it the cdc? is it our governors? what s the deal? i want to bring in a practicing internist, dr. lucy mcbride, to help me understand a little bit more about who we should be listening to. dr. lucy mcbride, thank you for being here. i appreciate it. thanks, laura, for having me.
joining the band wagon of easing covid restrictions, as all cases are continuing to drop across the country. you ve got massachusetts and new york and rhode island and illinois all joined other states today in lifting mask mandates either in schools or indoor public spaces entirely. it now puts them frankly in conflict with the biden administration s guidance, which still calls for masking indoors. and that s regardless of vaccination status. the cdc director defended the agency s stance today. we are working on the guidance. we are working on, you know, following the trends for the moment. what i will say, though, is, you know, our hospitalizations are still high. our death rates are still high. so, as we work toward that and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet. all right. so, look, who are we supposed to listen to? is it the cdc? is it our governors? what s the deal? i want to bring in our practicing internist, dr. lucy
frustration with a lot of parents, randi. if you waited for every person who is still nervous about covid, and many rightly are, if you waited for the vaccination rates to get where teachers or other groups want them to be, you will be waiting forever because the vaccination rate is never going to get with these kids it is so low right now. especially with younger children. you will never get to a place where you could say we ve met the threshold, you could have kids in masks forever. isn t that the right approach dr. mcbride talks about, if you feel you need to wear a mask for yourself, do it, protect yourself, but don t force everyone else to wear them? look, in pre-delta, pre the american pediatricians coming out and saying the masks will really help in terms of delta, we were walking into this school year with lots of places not having mask mandates. i don t disagree with, you know, what lucy just said about and lucy and i have had these
learning disabilities have having a hard time connecting with other people to be able to grow and develop as they should. dr. lucy mcbride, this is a key moment in this pandemic. and i think it is possible to say, you know, you don t have to say we made a mistake, it is in the an admission of mistakes to say we re going to do something different going forward. it is an admission of where things stand now. so people can get politics out of it, maybe they will make, you know, they will come to reasoned decisions. dr. lucy mcbride, thank you very much. thank you. the supreme court just green lit alabama s new congressional map, even though a lower court said it discriminates against black voters. and a big morning for movie lovers. the oscar nominations are about to be announced. we ll tell you the big change to this year s best picture category. and making history, team usa figure skating star nathan chen breaks a world record.
learn from you, the better we as a society can be able to deal with this. dr. mcbride and dr. azar, thank you both for being with me this morning. i appreciate it. thank you so much. thank you. coming up, we re live in ukraine with how the country is planning to defend itself if russia invades. you re watching jose diaz-balart reports on msnbc. russia invades you re watching jose you re watching jose diaz-balart reports on msnbc. t with lipton. because sippin on unsweetened lipton can help support a healthy heart. lipton. stop chuggin . start sippin .