We are all sick of the COVID-19 pandemic— some figuratively, some literally— but what I am the sickest of is the inconsistent guidelines. I get it, “We are in unprecedented times,” but why does it seem that every other country knows what to do besides us? Sure, we were one of the earlier countries to have a COVID-19 vaccine authorized, but what do we have to say for ourselves besides that?
At the start of the pandemic, we had one variant along with federal stay-at-home orders, travel bans, federal mask mandates and no vaccine. Now, cases are at an all-time high with each new week’s numbers smashing the record of the previous. Additionally, we have ten variants, no federal stay-at-home orders, no travel bans, nor any federal mask mandates, but this time we do at least have a vaccine. I am not here to argue how this pandemic should be managed, but in favor of logical and consistent rules.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the national guidelines were put in place to promote citizens’ well-being even in uncertainty. Current guidelines are no longer benefitting Americans’ health but cater to America’s economy.
The one thing in particular which bothered me was the recent update on quarantine guidelines from ten days of isolation to five days of isolation and five more days of wearing a mask. The problem I have is not with the shorter quarantine period, but with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision to not require a negative test to return to work or school. Many doctors are unsettled with this decision as it places asymptomatic and symptomatic individuals in an unnecessary position to expose others. Dr. Michael Mina, a physician and former professor at Harvard’s Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics, calls this decision “reckless,” according an article written by Jane Their for Fortune. The CDC’s choice to go along with this measure is not for national health or well-being, but in reaction to the fear of economic decline.
In an article by Abigail Johnson Hess for CNBC, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, said the new guideline is a response to staffing shortages.
“One of the things we want to be careful of is that we don’t have so many people out,” Fauci said in the article.
However, this adjustment will not fix staffing shortages. Instead, it will force infected people to go back to work to infect more people, resulting in even more shortages. The rule also makes it so that people do not get the recovery time they need in order to make a full rehabilitation from the sickness. The economy is important, but you cannot have an economy without people, and people are dying because of these careless rules.
I have focused primarily on national guidelines, but the main source of my frustration has not been with the CDC but with Mississippi State University’s guidelines. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, MSU forced everyone to move back home and not come back from an extended spring break among the panic waves of uncertainty. During the following semester, fall 2020, hybrid and online classes were widely used, live streaming of classes was heavily encouraged, in-person classes were reduced in overall size with mask mandates, social distancing rules were enforced and indoor sporting events required masks. For the spring 2021 semester, hybrid classes and online classes were sprinkled in, masks were required, sporting events encouraged mask use, but social distancing guidelines were basically axed. For fall 2021 there were very few online classes, masks were required in classrooms but not when walking around buildings for vaccinated students (the virus disappears in the hallway, did you not hear?), staff and faculty were federally mandated to get vaccinated and live streaming of classes was not required for teachers, putting many students at risk of falling behind in class. Now, faculty and staff are not required to be vaccinated and masks are required everywhere in buildings/classrooms again, but this rule is set to be reconsidered Feb. 1. Although the mask rule has been fully reinstated, I have seen a large number of students completely disregarding the guideline. While some students have opted not to mask from the start, the inconsistency in masking policy has led to many more students going mask-less. 
The reason for all of these changes is not because COVID-19 is suddenly not as severe, but because of the public pressure to go “back to normal,” even if it is not in the public health’s best interest. MSU is a business after all, so they listen to public opinion, but make decisions based on monetary retention. Notice they did not announce the reinstatement of the mask mandate in all buildings until after tuition was due in order to retain the most students they possibly could. I am not asking MSU or U.S. leaders to resolve the pandemic already, because it is not an easy thing to manage. I am simply asking them to be consistent with their messaging and make decisions for the wellbeing of the public, because all this back and forth is exhausting; we are quite literally “sick” of it.