eNewMexican

CDC director defends abrupt reversal on mask recommendations

By Dan Diamond

The nation’s top public health official on Sunday defended her agency’s abrupt reversal on wide-ranging mask recommendations, saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had weighed new data before announcing that Americans who had been vaccinated could go without masks.

“We now have science that has really just evolved even in the last two weeks,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said on ABC’s This Week, citing new data that coronavirus vaccines are curbing spread of the disease and offering protection against virus variants. Walensky, who appeared on four separate Sunday morning news shows to explain her agency’s new guidelines, also touted widespread access to those vaccines and called on tens of millions of unvaccinated Americans to go get shots.

“We also need to say that this is not permission for widespread removal of masks,” she added on ABC.

Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, acknowledged that there was “some merit” to questions about whether the CDC could have better laid the groundwork for its messaging shift.

“I would imagine within a period of just a couple of weeks, you’re going to start to see significant clarification of some of the actually understandable and reasonable questions that people are asking,” Fauci said on CBS’ Face the Nation.

Thursday’s announcement that CDC was changing almost all masking and distancing recommendations for fully vaccinated Americans caught physicians, state and local leaders and even some White House officials off guard. The Washington Post on Saturday reported that Walensky first signed off on changing her agency’s mask guidance on Monday but continued to defend CDC’s sweeping guidance that Americans wear masks in public, including in a Senate hearing on Tuesday before CDC narrowed its recommendations.

Pressed by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace about whether the CDC was pressured to roll back its call for widespread masking, Walensky insisted the shift was driven by public health, not politics.

“It certainly would’ve been easier if the science had evolved a week earlier, and I didn’t have to go to Congress making those statements,” Walensky said. “I delivered it as soon as I can when we have the information,” she added, citing new research and falling case numbers.

Walensky also disputed Wallace’s question about whether the CDC was relying on Americans to now follow an “honor system” on masks. The Biden administration has repeatedly said that it will not impose requirements for people to prove they’ve gotten shots, like mandating so-called vaccine passports.

“The honor system is to be honest with yourself,” said Walensky, warning that Americans who weren’t vaccinated and chose to go without masks were putting themselves at risk.

Public health experts have warned the CDC’s shift on mask-wearing could force grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses into the uncomfortable position of checking whether patrons have been vaccinated.

NATION & WORLD

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2021-05-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-17T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://enewmexican.pressreader.com/article/281595243423824

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