The CDC posted an update suggesting that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance

The CDC update also indicates that that fully vaccinated people can refrain from testing following a known exposure unless they are residents or employees of a correctional or detention facility or a homeless shelter

Gov. Gavin Newsom suggested in a TV interview Tuesday that California will do away with its mask mandate in favor of “recommendations” around June 15, the state’s target date for ending COVID-19 restrictions on businesses.

In a video clip posted to Twitter, Fox 11 Los Angeles anchor Elex Michaelson asked the governor: “Are we looking at masks after June 15?” Newsom’s response: “No. Only in those settings that are indoor. Only in those massively large settings, where people – from around the world, not just around the country – are convening, and where people are mixing in real dense spaces. He later is said to have walked back this position.

However, a report in Business Insurance says that employers are frustrated and confused by conflicting instructions from other sources.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidelines that lean on U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance still call for indoor mask-wearing, and OSHA is getting ready to release a national emergency temporary standard that experts say could echo the guidelines already in place and come with fines for noncomplying employers.

Another issue is employees who don’t understand why the rules remain when they have been vaccinated, said Erik Eisenmann, Milwaukee-based partner and chair of the labor and employment group at Husch Blackwell LLP, who noted that questions around worker safety protocols and vaccinations are among the most common.

“Those employees protesting (masks) are only going to get louder,” he adds.

Todd B. Logsdon, Louisville, Kentucky-based partner and co-chair of the workplace safety practice group at Fisher & Phillips LLP, said the issue has led to frustration, especially for employers that operate in multiple states.

“Some states have completely lifted all restrictions and other states still have a fair amount of their restrictions in place,” he said, adding that the conflicting messages are leading to morale issues among employees.

Eric Conn, Washington-based founding partner of Conn Maciel Carey LLP, said employers have reported that “the single greatest compliance challenge they have faced during this pandemic has been trying to comply with the impossible patchwork of competing and contradicting mandates from local and state health departments, governors’ executive orders, state (occupational safety and health) plan emergency temporary standards, and so on.”