Running outdoors with members of your household (or by yourself, of course) was one of only two activities listed in the CDC’s new guidance yesterday that can be done without a mask *even if you’re unvaccinated.* Reid isn’t. She’s had both shots. The odds of her either getting infected or infecting someone else during the course of a jog must be one in many millions.

But this isn’t about science anymore, is it?

It’s pure “I care more than you” virtue-signaling nonsense. Anyone can wear a mask in a risky environment, the thinking goes, but the person who wears a mask in an environment where the risk is near zero? Why, that’s a person who’s really considerate of those around them, or so Reid wants us to believe. Watch, then read on.

Joy Reid says that she went jogging today while wearing two masks even though she is fully vaccinated pic.twitter.com/h7zFE9CzkW

— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 28, 2021

That isn’t the first time she’s broadcast her extreme risk-aversion to her audience. From a few weeks ago:

I’m with @CapehartJ — I too am one vax down, but even when I get the second shot, I am too “scurred” to be out there wildin. No flying and no indoor activities for me. Nope! #TheSundayShow

— Joy-Ann Pro-Democracy & Masks Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) April 11, 2021

Even for a virtue-signaler, that’s a lot of signaling — or at least I hope that’s what she’s up to. If she’s genuinely still so terrified of COVID post-vaccination that she won’t do anything indoors, even with the CDC’s endorsement, I pity her. At that point it’s not risk-aversion anymore, it’s paranoia. And borderline anti-vax.

Whatever, though. If she wants to double-mask outdoors after being immunized, it’s no one else’s business. Besides, in due time peer pressure will lead her to change her mind. The fewer masks are being worn outside by others, the more mask-clingers will begin to feel “overdressed” among them.

While Reid was boasting to her viewers last night about her insistence on continued precautions, actual scientists were complaining to other media outlets that the CDC’s new rules are too restrictive.

“It doesn’t go far enough,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, told CNN on Tuesday night. “What it doesn’t really underscore for Americans is what the CDC knows, which is that these vaccines induce immunity.”…

“If you tell people that you can do just about anything if you are vaccinated, that is telling people that you have confidence in the vaccines,” Reiner said. “But what’s the message to the country when you tell people who are fully vaccinated ‘Be wary of crowded locations?’ You’re casting doubt on the efficacy of the vaccine. And I don’t think there is any doubt on the efficacy of these vaccines.”

Leana Wen also pushed some hard truths on CNN:

“I understand that the Biden team wants to be cautious, but caution comes at a price,” Wen said earlier in the interview…

“I think they’re discounting that many Americans want to know, what’s in it for me? They don’t want to wait until everyone gets to some elusive herd immunity,” Wen continued.

“I think it will be a lot more effective if we say once you are fully vaccinated, that’s the end of the road for you,” she added. “So at that point, you’re able to take off your mask outside. You’re able to go about enjoying many aspects of pre-pandemic life. I think that is going to be key to overcoming vaccine hesitancy.”

The new guidance *did* do that, though — sort of. All activities, indoor and outdoor, were endorsed as low risk for vaccinated people. The only hitch was that mask-wearing is still recommended indoors in public spaces. “The CDC’s mask guidance is really vaccine guidance,” Axios noted this morning, correctly, emphasizing how the new rules incentivize vaccination as the chief means of risk management. We’re no longer arguing about whether any public space should be off-limits to the vaccinated for precautionary reasons, which is progress. The argument is whether they should continue to take any precautions while within those spaces, even a minimal one like wearing a mask.

I’ll leave you with Scott Gottlieb, another critic of the new guidance. It’s a good step, he allows, but having 14 different categories with different rules for the vaccinated and unvaccinated is waaaay too complex for the average joe. I sense that Gottlieb would have preferred to see the agency say “anything goes” for the vaccinated while focusing its rules on those who haven’t had their shots yet. He even goes so far as to suggest that businesses set their own guidance for indoor spaces rather than rely on the CDC because the agency’s rules are too baroque and take too long to be issued. When even a respected expert like Gottlieb is telling people to ignore the CDC, it feels like we’re at a bad place in America’s pandemic response.

"If businesses are waiting for prescriptive guidance on how to reopen in the fall…they should start developing those guidelines on their own," @ScottGottliebMD says. "It's going to end up like the guidance the CDC put out for summer camps which is byzantine and hard to follow." pic.twitter.com/lPhs0QhtLw

— CNBC (@CNBC) April 28, 2021