BY STEPHANIE TAIT in Sojourners (Christian) Magazine, May 2021

Last week, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released updated guidance on masking, many school districts, government leaders, and retail businesses released a frenzy of announcements, either ending their mask requirements for vaccinated people or ending masking requirements for everyone — effective immediately.

The new CDC guidance has also prompted many pastors and faith leaders to revisit their own masking and social distancing guidelines for worship. But as an immunocompromised person, I want churches to know that if you choose to allow your congregation to unmask now, before we have any sort of herd immunity, you are asking immunocompromised people to choose between risking their lives or being excluded from church.

First, read the actual CDC guidance itself. Despite the way so much of the media has framed this as the end of mask mandates, the actual guidance says no such thing. As CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in an interview this past Sunday, “This is not permission for widespread removal of masks ... These decisions have to be made at the jurisdictional level, at the community level.” So what does the guidance say? It specifically outlines what activities should be safe for those who are fully vaccinated — a term it narrowly defines as those who are at least two weeks from completing all doses of a vaccine. The guidance also explicitly states that all unvaccinated people (who include those commonly referred to as “partially vaccinated”) need to continue all precautions, including masking. Most importantly, the guidance states that even fully vaccinated people need to continue to follow the masking requirements laid out by their state, local governments, or businesses. There is nothing in the guidance suggesting your church should end masking requirements, especially if you would not be willing to confirm the vaccination status of those entering unmasked.

Second, remember that only about 37 percent of the U.S. population is currently fully vaccinated. Many of the statistics reported in the media are either the total number of doses given or the number of eligible adults that have received at least one dose of a vaccine. Those numbers often lead to the misconception that we are rapidly nearing herd immunity, when in reality there are no states in which even 50 percent of the population is vaccinated yet, and some states like Mississippi have rates as low as 26 percent. This means that for every person who walks in the door of your church, it is statistically more likely that they are unvaccinated rather than vaccinated. Additionally, keep in mind that vaccinations only recently became available for kids ages 12-15, so no one in that age group has reached fully vaccinated status yet; kids 11 and under do not have an approved vaccine available to them at all. With even the new CDC guidance stating that unvaccinated people must still continue masking, that means a lot of people in your congregation still need to be masked in order to prevent COVID-19 transmission.

Most importantly, consider the growing research suggesting that COVID-19 vaccines are not as effective for some immunocompromised people. This population represents some of those already most vulnerable to COVID-19; their safety now depends on our nation either reaching herd immunity or continuing the use of masking and other COVID-19 precautions.