Joe and Jill Biden wore face masks to walk across the lawn at the White House on their return from Delaware on Sunday, despite there...
Joe and Jill Biden wore face masks to walk across the lawn at the White House on their return from Delaware on Sunday, despite there being no mandate, Omicron infection rates collapsing and the country trying to get back to normal.
The Bidens - who are vaccinated and boosted - covered their faces as they crossed the White House grounds surrounded by Secret Service agents and the press, even though the risk of an infection outdoors is negligible.
It is not clear who the President, 79, or the First Lady, 70, were protecting or who they felt they needed protection from as the only people walking across the grounds.
It comes just months after the Bidens were pictured wearing face masks on a deserted Rehoboth Beach in Delaware while walking their German Shepherd puppy, Commander and accused of mask theater.
Top medical expert Dr. Nicole Saphier has said the White House needs to stop their 'mixed messaging' on masks and it's 'high time' to let anyone who wants to move forward from the pandemic, do so.'
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in December updated its guidance to say that Americans who are fully vaccinated can safely go maskless indoors, or outdoors, with the exception of crowded indoor settings like planes.
The President's mask-wearing parade on Sunday came despite the updated guidance on face coverings and the U.S. seeing Covid cases rapidly fall by half in the past two weeks.
Daily cases are down 33 percent across the country, and the 305,944 infections recorded every day are a far fall from the peak of 800,000 cases per day reached in mid-January.
New Jersey's Democratic Governor Phil Murphy is also expected to later today that he will be ending school mask mandates next month, in a sign politicians from both parties want to return to normal.
Joe and Jill Biden have worn face masks to walk across the lawn at the White House, despite there being no mandate to do so and Omicron infection rates collapsing
Joe and Jill Biden have worn face masks to walk across the lawn at the White House, despite there being no mandate to do so and Omicron infection rates collapsing
Daily cases are down 33 percent across the country, and the 305,944 infections recorded every day are a far fall from the peak of 800,000 cases per day reached in mid-January
Dr Anthony Fauci has also said there was an 'extremely low' risk of contracting Covid indoors after getting fully vaccinated.
The White House has said the President wears masks out of an abundance of caution and make guests and staff who interact with him wear N95 masks.
Dr. Saphier, a radiologist at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, accused Biden of sending mixed messages over mask wearing.
She told DailyMail.com: 'President Biden is a 79 year old man with medical comorbidities - not exactly a pillar of strength and health.
'Given that he is considered high risk for Covid-19, if he feels better wearing a facemask, even when largely unnecessary, then he should.
'However, footage shows that The President removes his mask when indoors and with various people on occasion so the negligible protection provided from wearing it while walking outdoors is negated once he removes it inside.'
Saphier added: 'The message from the White House should be anyone that wants to wear a mask should be able to. Mask and vaccine mandates are doing more harm than good.
'It is high time to let anyone who wants to move forward from the pandemic, do so.
'While case levels continue to drop around the country and immunity further builds, it is prudent to stop the madness that is perpetuating discord and distrust, not to mention starving our children from social and emotional development.'
It comes just months after the Bidens were pictured wearing face masks on a deserted Rehoboth Beach in Delaware while walking their German Shepherd puppy, Commander
When the couple walked closer to the White House, members of the secret sevice and the press were seen nearer, within a couple of yards, however the risk of infection given they were outdoors was negligible
The White House declined to comment when contacted by DailyMail.com.
Biden's show of wearing a mask as he walked across the White House lawn comes despite falling Covid cases in the U.S.
Cases have been declining in 49 states in the last two weeks, by Johns Hopkins' count, and the 50th, Maine, reported that confirmed infections are falling there, too, dropping sharply over the past week.
Also, the number of Americans in hospital with COVID-19 has declined 15% since mid-January to about 124,000.
Deaths are still running high at more than 2,400 per day on average, the most since last winter. The death toll from Covid hit 900,000 on Friday, less than two months after eclipsing 800,000. And deaths are on the rise in at least 35 states, reflecting the lag between when victims become infected and when they succumb.
Still, public health officials have expressed hope that the worst of omicron is coming to an end. While they caution that things could still go bad again and dangerous new variants could emerge, some places are already talking about easing precautions.
Los Angeles County may end outdoor mask requirements in a few weeks, Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.
'Post-surge does not imply that the pandemic is over or that transmission is low, or that there will not be unpredictable waves of surges in the future,' she warned.
Despite its wealth and its world-class medical institutions, the U.S. has the highest reported toll of any country, and even then, the real number of lives lost directly or indirectly to the coronavirus is thought to be significantly higher.
Joe and Jill Biden walking their German Shepherd pup in December in Delaware while wearing masks
In terms of statewide COVID measures, the US currently has 11 states implementing a mask mandate for indoor and public spaces with some requiring its use regardless of vaccination status.
Earlier in the pandemic, many US states required the use of a mask in indoor public spaces with many bringing the mandate back due to the surge in cases as a result of new variants including Delta and Omicron.
Last month, a New York judge ruck down the state's mask mandate one week before it was due to expire, ruling the governor did not have authority to impose the rule without approval from the state legislature.
But New York state education officials are telling schools to keep enforcing Gov. Kathy Hochul's indoor mask mandate even after a Long Island judge struck down the requirement on Monday.
The Education Department says the state plans to appeal the January ruling, a step that could keep the rule in place at least until its planned expiration on February 1.
'While these legal steps occur, it is NYSED's position that schools should continue to follow the mask rule,' said department spokesperson Emily DeSantis.
Judge Thomas Rademaker struck down the state's mask mandate. He said that legislators' decision to declare New York no longer in a state of emergency means the new measures forcing residents to wear masks in all indoor spaces, which carry fines of up to $1,000 for those who do not comply, are unenforceable and are now void.
Gov. Hochul's mandate 'is a law that was promulgated and enacted unlawfully by an executive branch state agency, and therefore void and unenforceable,' the Judge Rademaker said Monday.
It was latest setback for executive branch officials at state and federal levels after much legal wrangling over the issue of mask mandates in different states.
Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said she disagreed with the ruling, and Attorney General Letitia James tweeted that her office would challenge it.
Last month, the Supreme Court also blocked President Joe Biden's vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses.
The president's mandate faced political and legal opposition almost immediately after he announced it last fall in a desperate bid to raise the U.S. vaccination rate that plateaued over the summer.
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has withdrawn the rule, which required large employers to either implement a COVID vaccine requirement or force workers to submit to weekly virus testing, which it formally issued after Biden's order on November 5 of last year.
The withdrawal was effective from January 26, 2022.
Disagreements and court action over mandates in a number of states have become a flashpoint of the pandemic response in the United States, often dividing Democrats and Republicans.
Meanwhile in January, California extended its indoor mask mandate until February 15.
The original mandate came into force on December 15 last year and was meant to end in just nine days on January 15.
But Californians will now be made to continue wearing masks in all indoor spaces even if they have received their vaccines.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis imposed a state ban on imposing mask mandates, but some schools defied the order.
The Republican ruled only parents can decide whether or not their children wear masks to school.
It comes as Dr Scott Gottlieb, former director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and current board member at Pfizer, says that the declining cases should be a signal to officials that it is time to start lifting mask mandates across the country.
'I think certainly on the east coast where you see cases declining dramatically we need to be willing to lean in and do that very soon I think as conditions improve we have to be willing to relax some of these measures with the same speed that we put them in place,' he told CNBC's The Squawk Box.
'We haven't described clear goalposts for when we're gonna withdraw a lot of these measures and the two most contentious things right now in the U.S. are the masks among children in schools and the vaccine mandates,' he said.
He added that in order for people to comply by Covid rules, health officials need to 'have a flexible doctrine' that changes as the situation of the pandemic does.
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