{"id":32470,"date":"2021-03-05T15:36:43","date_gmt":"2021-03-05T23:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=32470"},"modified":"2021-03-05T15:36:43","modified_gmt":"2021-03-05T23:36:43","slug":"masks-arent-forever-but-they-are-for-now-says-biden-covid-19-adviser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=32470","title":{"rendered":"Masks aren\u2019t forever, but they are for now, says Biden COVID-19 adviser"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The senior adviser for the White House\u2019s COVID-19 response team encouraged Americans to keep wearing masks as a preventative measure on Friday, as some states lift their mandates amid declining case numbers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and public health officials locally, at the state level and nationally are all clear: Wear a mask, not forever, but for now,\u201d\u00a0Andy Slavitt\u00a0said during a briefing on Friday. \u201cWear a mask now so that we can get to a place where you don\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd this is not just the voice of cautious public health experts, it is what businesses who want to remain open and many public officials of both parties who\u2019ve lived through the last year are saying,\u201d Slavitt added.<\/p>\n<p>Texas and Mississippi both lifted their\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/sjjlwzjfpbbtgzgbtcmpptllpjthbjbddkpfzshbbrrkjb_xbsdrrhvhtdbdpcshccb.html?a=&amp;b=37379\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/click1.email.thehill.com\/sjjlwzjfpbbtgzgbtcmpptllpjthbjbddkpfzshbbrrkjb_xbsdrrhvhtdbdpcshccb.html?a%3D%26b%3D37379&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1615070571671000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGY8_BM3TgIP3OuoE9xNmWZqn78RQ\">mask mandates<\/a>\u00a0and capacity restrictions on businesses on Tuesday, though health experts warn newer, more contagious variants of the coronavirus could cause spikes in infections even as vaccinations increase.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cProgress demonstrates we can defeat COVID-19, but it does not equal success,\u201d Slavitt said. \u201cIt may seem tempting in the face of all of this progress to try to rush back to normalcy as if the virus is in the rear-view mirror. It\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The senior adviser for the White&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32471,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32470\/revisions\/32471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}