After a four-day wait, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has decided that New York state will follow the CDC’s recently released guidance that vaccinated people can stop wearing masks and don’t have to follow 6-foot social distancing rules.

Of course, we wonder why it took four days for Cuomo to make this decision. What, exactly, do Cuomo and Dr. Howard Zucker, state health commissioner, know that the Centers for Disease Control do not? Regardless of what one thinks of Dr. Rochelle Walensky, there is no arguing that she has received her MD from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, her master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health and spent years researching infectious diseases. While we weren’t a fan of Wolensky’s fear-filled rant earlier this year about feelings of impending doom, it’s hard to question her training. But that’s what Cuomo did each and every day he delayed accepting the CDC’s mask and social distancing guidelines.

In our opinion, Cuomo’s delay accomplished nothing but harming the state’s vaccination efforts. It was one thing for Cuomo to cast doubts and aspersions on President Donald Trump — Trump and Cuomo were like oil and water. It’s not suprising that Cuomo and Trump would lob rhetorical grenades back and forth at each other.

But extending the political charade now only gives vaccine-hesitant New Yorkers a reason to doubt the work done under Trump and President Joe Biden to create a vaccine that is safe. Cuomo is doing nothing but stoking doubts among two camps that sorely need to come back to reality — the anti-vaccine camp who look at the governor’s hesitance as reason not to believe the vaccines are safe and effective as well as those who are hesitant to return to normal until everyone is vaccinated, preferably twice.

We note Pennsylvania quickly adopted the new federal guidelines — and nobody will mistake Pennsyvania Gov. Tom Wolf for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Wolf knew that the CDC and its team of scientists know more than he does and acted accordingly.

Cuomo did not. It’s just another reason the state Legislature should bring the governor’s expansive emergency powers to a screeching halt. Enough is enough.