‘We won’: Internet users respond to updated CDC guidance

Social media users are reacting to new guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officially equating the unvaccinated with the vaccinated. 

The CDC “brings the recommendations for unvaccinated people in line with people who are fully vaccinated – an acknowledgment of the high levels of population immunity in the U.S., due to vaccination, past COVID-19 infections or both,” reported NPR.  

The guidance also recommends against screening people who are asymptomatic, eliminates the need to quarantine after exposure to the virus, and similarly allows children to remain in schools after exposure to an infection. 

CDC Branch Chief Greta Massetti credited the high level of herd immunity, which she said was around 95%, for the new relaxed guidelines. Vaccination rates are reportedly around 80%, with an estimated 67% considered fully vaccinated, and without any recent jump in vaccinations to warrant a change in narrative. 

“What changed? Nothing changed. They just realized they lost, and changed the guidelines to fit the L,” tweeted Ben Shapiro in response to the announcement. 

The “unvaccinated” - those who refused to bend the knee over the last two-and-a-half-years to world governments, mainstream media, tech giants, social pressure and crushing mandates – are allowing themselves a small pyrrhic victory lap in response to what is being seen as a federal backpedal. 

“We won,” declared podcast host and media consultant Hanna Cox. “An important reminder to always be ungovernable when they come for your civil liberties.” 

“We won and the CDC just threw in the towel,” wrote another user. “Corona is officially no longer a thing in the U.S., after 2 and a half years of the lunatics running the asylum.” 

But those who succumbed to mass formation psychosis during the pandemic interpreted the relaxed guidance as the federal government’s exasperation with the unvaccinated and surrender to emotional fatigue. 

“CDC: ‘OK, if that's what you're determined to do, do it.  We're tired of fighting an unwinnable, uphill battle.  'Selfish' has won, and so will the virus. Enjoy yourselves.’ If you don't like the new sad headshake from CDC, you could still wear a mask, you know.  I do,” wrote one netizen. 

“CDC: ‘We've absolutely given up on controlling this, we're abandoning the elderly and immunocompromised of America to the whims of their peers. Don't expect us to do anything in the future, either, because the Antivaxxers and Right Wing have won,’” tweeted another. 

“Right now the CDC sounds like when we would REALLY get on our mom’s nerves and she’d be like ‘You know what? Do whatever you want then.’ And like, for a second you think you won. But you really did not,” wrote Ashley Nicole Black, who was then quoted by “COVID Forever” physician Eric Feigl-Ding. 

“The vaccinations won. The government has given up on the unvaccinated. Let's see how they fare if there's another wave,” claimed another user. 

“CDC officially surrenders to Covid. All you ‘we have to open up, I hate masks, no Vax, science means nothing’ people, you won. Congratulations. You are now all mass murderers. Burn in hell you f*cking a**holes.”