Alaska Airlines bans state senator for refusing to wear a mask, over 1/4 of American workers oppose vaccines, and Basecamp’s CEO takes heat over culture shake-up

Hello, communicators:

This week, the Biden administration plans to announce relaxed federal public health guidelines on wearing masks outdoors. The announcement is expected to give separate recommendations for fully-vaccinated people and people who have not received a vaccine.

“What I believe you’re going to be hearing, what the country is going to be hearing soon, is updated guidelines from the CDC,”  Dr. Anthony Fauci said on ABC’s Sunday program “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”   “The CDC is a science-based organization. They don’t want to make any guidelines unless they look at the data and the data backs it up.”

Communicators, remember to provide data in any company messaging about shifting employee guidelines or other sudden operational changes. Leading your communications with data encourages stakeholder confidence and fortifies your company’s decisions by providing context around why the operational changes were made in the first place.

Alaska Airlines has suspended Alaskan state Sen. Lora Reinbold from flying on the airline after alleging that she continuously refused to comply with its mask mandate.