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FFC … here’s a FYI … LOL … :)

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Here’s FYI (for your information)
LOL (laugh out loud)

New CDC guidelines say vaccinated Americans can now ditch the masks, with a few exceptions: Live COVID-19 updates
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/05/13/covid-vaccine-cdc-variant-fda-clots-world-health-organization/5066504001/ Fully vaccinated Americans can discard masks and the need for social distancing outdoors and in most indoors settings, the CDC said Thursday in a dramatic announcement after months of mostly cautious measures.
The new guidelines announced by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, represent a major step toward a return to normalcy for a nation battered and at times divided by a pandemic that has lasted more than a year.
“Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities, large or small, without wearing a mask or physical distancing,” Walensky said. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.”
A person is considered fully vaccinated against the coronavirus two weeks after getting the second Pfizer or Moderna shot or the same length of time after receiving the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Answers to your questions:CDC lifts indoor mask guidelines for fully vaccinated people. What does it actually mean?
The new guidance still calls for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings such as buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters but could ease restrictions for reopening workplaces and schools. In addition, the agency will no longer recommend that fully vaccinated people wear masks outdoors in crowds, possibly allowing for bigger capacities at sporting events.
“Today is a great day for America in our long battle with the coronavirus,” President Joe Biden said in the Rose Garden after the CDC’s announcement. “It think it’s a great milestone.”
Biden was meeting with GOP senators in the Oval Office when the CDC issued the new guidance and told his guests they could ditch their masks, according to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
“The president said let’s just take them off, right here, in the meeting,” Blunt told reporters.
Masks mandates got politicized under former President Donald Trump, who usually eschewed face coverings and mocked those who had them, and they became a source of discord in parts of the country.
The new recommendations from the CDC could also serve as an incentive for the tens of millions of eligible Americans who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get their shots. Though more than 46% of the U.S. population of 330 million has received at least one vaccine dose, polls have shown about 25% don’t intend to get inoculated.
Coronavirus cases in the U.S. are at their lowest rate since September and deaths are at their lowest point since April 2020, averaging about 600 a day, but some experts still worry that the emergence of variants could disrupt that momentum and create another surge, especially as the virus continues to rage in other parts of the world.
Biden’s administration had been under pressure to loosen pandemic restrictions as more Americans got vaccinated and infections diminished across most of the country.
Dr. Jay Wolfson, a public health expert at the University of South Florida, said the CDC had lost a great “a great deal of credibility” in the public’s perception in part because its cautious guidance often lagged behind the “pragmatic realities” of the pandemic.
Contributing: Joel Shannon, Maureen GroppeH

Possibly all restrictions lifted as of June 11

Illinois bridge phase: Mask mandates, crowd limits eased as state enters next-to-last phase of reopening plan
Dan Petrella, Gregory Pratt, Jenny Whidden – Chicago Tribune
https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-coronavirus-pritzker-bridge-phase-20210513-tnxul2hs5rawheah47znk4zjve-story.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daywatch&utm_content=911620988415#nws=true

Life may start to feel closer to normal in Illinois beginning Friday, as more people are allowed into stadiums, amusement parks, restaurants and shops, and masks are expected to soon become optional in most situations for people who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

The move to the next-to-last phase of Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s coronavirus reopening plan is a precursor to all restrictions being lifted, which could happen as soon as June 11. In addition to the looser guidelines of Pritzker’s bridge phase, officials offered some incentives for those who haven’t yet gotten their shots.

Drinking It Straight | Tim Challies

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challies.com

Drinking It Straight | Tim Challies

Tim Challies 4-5 minutes

I find it almost hard to believe now, but there was a time in my life that I hated coffee. At least I thought I did. I wanted to be a grownup like everyone else, so had tried to drink it on a number of occasions. But every time I did, I found it more disgusting than the time before. I just couldn’t figure out what everyone else loved about it.

It turns out, though, that my friends had unintentionally led me astray. Knowing that I had never drunk it before, they had always tried to make it more palatable by giving me some mixed-up hybrid of coffee, sugar, and cream. They thought it would be best for me to begin with a little coffee and a lot of other stuff that would cut the bitterness. And every time I tried it I hated it.

But then one day it occurred to me that I had never actually just tried straight-up coffee. I poured myself a cup of the real deal, and from the first sip found that I loved it. It wasn’t the coffee I had hated, but the combination of coffee, sugar, and cream! In fact, the joy of drinking coffee was in the full-out flavor, bitterness and all. The problem all along was that people had diluted the coffee, or added something to it, thinking that this would make it more enjoyable. When they added to it, they changed it entirely, so that it wasn’t really coffee anymore.

I thought about this on Sunday morning as I meditated on the text I was about to preach, the final verses of 2 Timothy 3, where Paul tells Timothy about the origin and purpose of the Bible. I knew that I wanted to preach the text in such a way that everything I said flowed naturally and legitimately right out of it. I prayed that I would bring to bear the full weight and urgency of the text, that I would be able to get out of the way so the text could speak.

My mind drifted back to the days when Aileen and I were in churches where the preachers had treated the Bible kind of like my friends had treated coffee. Somewhere they must have lost their confidence in the Bible just a little bit, and they began to believe that it was unpalatable or distasteful to those who hadn’t encountered it before, to those who weren’t used to its flavor. Their solution was to try to change or cut the full flavor. So instead of allowing the text to speak by just preaching it book-by-book, chapter-by-chapter, and verse-by-verse, they approached it through the lens of topics or felt needs. Instead of preaching what it said, no matter how difficult or controversial, they neglected the tough texts in favor of the easy ones. Verses were preached in isolation, not unity, and the Bible was made out to be little more than a means of learning how to live a better and more successful life.

After a few years of that, Aileen and I began to have these disquieting stirrings, these deep concerns that something was missing, that something had gone wrong. But we didn’t know exactly what it was. Then one day we visited another church in the area and an amazing thing happened: The pastor simply preached a text. He opened the Bible, he told us what it said, and he told us why it mattered. It was a tough text, but he did not water it down or run from it. He felt no need to add to it or adapt it. He just preached it. And it was amazing. Once we had tasted that undiluted Word, we realized how delicious it really was. We were ruined to anything less. We still are.

It has been many years since that first cup of coffee and I love it more than ever. I still drink it straight-up black. And more than ever I am committed to the straight-up Word of God, to never diluting it, and to never adding anything to it. It’s absolutely perfect and downright delicious just the way it is.

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