The Health 202: CDC's mask guidance is still too strict for the vaccinated, some experts say Paige Winfield Cunningham with Alexandra Ellerbeck Virtually everyone was vaccinated at the joint session of Congress this week. Yet it still looked like a pandemic scene as President Biden addressed masked and distanced lawmakers in the House chamber. The approach frustrated a number of public health experts, who are starting to question the Biden administration’s conservative approach to public health guidance despite highly effective — and now widely distributed — coronavirus vaccines. “Everyone could have been in that room,” said Monica Gandhi, professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco. “If we’re all fully vaccinated, we could all be unmasked and distanced in that room.”