"Several experts, including Kuppalli, think the CDC’s new masking guidance should have gone a step further, skipped the geographical contingencies, and asked all vaccinated people to resume covering up indoors—as the agency’s internal document called for. That would’ve generated some whiplash, too, Kuppalli told me, but it would have at least been more straightforward, and might have felt less wishy-washy; it might have signaled a more collective movement, toward a common goal. As it stands, the agency’s new guidance is murky and riddled with contingencies: Even vaccinated Americans in low- and moderate-transmission areas, it states, should consider masking up indoors if they or someone in their household is immunocompromised, at risk for severe disease, or unvaccinated."