CDC Director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, was grilled by liberal hosts about the agency’s mask guidelines, one day before it said fully vaccinated people don’t have to wear them indoors anymore.
MSNBC’s Shep Smith, CNN’s Chris Cuomo and The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah all slammed the mixed messaging that has been coming out of the CDC in recent weeks, despite 45 per cent of U.S. adult population being fully vaccinated, with nearly 60 per cent having had at least their first dose.
Indeed, just yesterday, a new report accused the CDC of exaggerating the risk of outdoor transmission, saying it was 10 per cent, when in fact it is really less than one per cent.
CNN host Chris Cuomo asked the CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky why full vaccinated Americans can’t take their masks off in separate interviews
CNBC host Shepard Smith grilled her on the very same question after weeks of mixed messages
CNBC and CNN hosts Shepard Smith and Chris Cuomo tackled the same subject in separate interviews with CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
Smith asked Walensky, ‘Why do we have to – we’re all vaccinated – why do we have to wear masks? What do I get for being vaccinated? Can’t I take this off?’
Chris Cuomo asked Walensky a similar question, ‘What data do you have that says it’s unsafe?’ and said the CDC is ‘playing it too safe.’
Walensky’s answers were nearly identical, saying they’re studying the science in ‘the real world setting.’
‘We were looking for signs to ensure that the vaccine works just as well in the real world setting as it did in the trials,’ Walensky told Smith.
Trevor Noah criticized the CDC’s outdoor mask guidelines during his show, saying they were confusing and complicated
‘We need to ensure that the vaccines are working against all of the circulating variants that we have here in the United States. We’re following that carefully.’
On Cuomo’s show, Walensky said the the rising number of variants in the US are creating an unknown.
From a political point of view, the CDC’s convoluted mask guidelines play right into the hands of the right’s arguments against the vaccine, Cuomo said.
‘Now you have the right saying, see, see? They go too slow, it wasn’t as bad as they said it was, about surfaces, about masks, about aerosols, about outdoor. They’ve been overplaying it the whole time, see, we were right,’ Cuomo said.
The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah had a field day with the old guidance chart in his opening monologue leading into his April 27 show.
‘The really frustrating thing about this chart is that they’ve spent five months telling us to get vaccinated. “Oh, get vaccinated and this will all be over. Get vaccinated!'” Noah said. ‘And I was like, “Great, I’ll get all four of the vaccines if it means I’ll get my life back.”
‘Now they’re putting out a chart that says even if you get vaccinated, you can only do two more things without a mask on? Two? Guys, what the hell? The s**t you’re saying to people is incoherent. You’re telling us these new vaccines are 95 per cent effective and will stop coronavirus, but we still can’t do anything without a mask on anyway?’
Earlier this week, CDC came under fire for still exaggerating the risk of coronavirus transmission outdoors, which the agency said was less than 10 per cent, but experts assert is really less than one per cent.
Walensky stated that ‘less than 10 per cent’ of coronavirus spread was occurring outside, but epidemiologists and infectious disease scientists tell DailyMail.com that although the figure is not incorrect, the true risk is believed to be much lower.
The number of COVID-19 cases linked to outdoor spread is below one per cent, and may even be as low as 0.1 per cent.
It comes as New York Times critic David Leonhardt criticized the agency on Tuesday for using mischaracterized data – from studies at construction sites in Singapore – to tell Americans to keep their masks on outside rather than following other interventions to help drive down infection rates.
Tucker Carlson said during his show on Monday night that the fact Americans are being told to still wear masks outside amid the COVID-19 pandemic ‘should shock us’
Prior to the CDC releasing its estimate last month, officials had not stated a concrete number on the risk of outdoor transmission.
But, according to The Times, when the agency did settle on ‘less than 10 per cent,’ it cited studies showing a large share of COVID-19 cases contracted outside occurred at construction sites in Singapore.
For example, in one study from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 95 cases out of 10,926 documented around the world were classified as outdoors.
All 95 were linked to a cluster at a building site in Singapore.
Right-wing hosts like Fox’s Tucker Carlson have been telling viewers that it’s safe to take their masks off for weeks.
During his April 26 show, Carlson said the fact that Americans are being told to still wear masks outside ‘should shock us.’
‘The next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or the bike path, don’t hesitate. Ask politely but firmly: ‘Would you please take off your mask? Science shows there is no reason to wear it. Your mask is making me uncomfortable’,’ Carlson said.
‘We should do that, and we should keep doing it, until wearing a mask outdoors is roughly as socially accepted as lighting a Marlboro in an elevator. It’s repulsive. Don’t do it around other people. That’s the message we should send because it’s true.’