In the wake of the latest mask guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, even CNN is pushing back.
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CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky appeared on the network Wednesday morning, when “New Day” co-host John Berman pressed her for any sort of medical data to back up her agency’s flip-flop on masks.
His question came after the CDC announced, amid the surge in so-called “Delta variant” COVID-19 cases, that both vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans should, once again, start wearing masks indoors in areas of the country with “high” or “substantial” transmission of the virus.
Those two categories account for a great deal of the nation.
This week’s announcement marks a complete 180-degree turn from what the CDC stated just two months ago, when it said vaccinated people could largely do away with masks in nearly all settings.
Walensky, who, with a gulp, readily admitted the “vast majority” of new cases are coming from unvaccinated people, was met with perhaps a bit more pushback than she anticipated from CNN.
“Predominately, this is something coming from unvaccinated people … to unvaccinated people, correct?” Berman asked Walensky, who offered an affirmative response. “So you can understand the frustration in those of us who are vaccinated saying, ‘Why the [expletive] do I have to pay the price for this?’”
As for why vaccinated people need to be wearing masks, the CDC director argued it’s because they could potentially “interact with people who may be infectious” and, on rare occasions, could end up with a mild “breakthrough infection” that they could, in turn, “bring to others.”
Walensky didn’t explain why such an occurrence should be concerning to others who are vaccinated. Presumably, if a vaccinated person carries a mild infection to another vaccinated person, that individual would weather a mild infection — should they even contract one — without issue.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, rushed to the CDC’s defense to say the federal agency “hasn’t really flip-flopped at all” on its mask recommendations.
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Former Food and Drug Administration director, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who serves on the board of directors for Pfizer, called the CDC’s new guidance “confusing” and argued vaccinated Americans wearing masks will have a “negligible impact” on curbing the surge in “Delta variant” cases.
“I don’t think we’re going to get enough bang for our buck to make it worth while,” he told CNBC, referring to the mask recommendation. “I think we’re further into the ‘Delta’ wave than we’re picking up. I think in another two or three weeks, we’ll be through this. This new guidance will have a negligible effect.”
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