The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention altered its mask guidance after a report found the Delta COVID-19 variant spreads as easily as chickenpox, possibly even among the vaccinated — but critics have ripped it as misleading and based on weak data.
The widely ridiculed change in mask policy followed an internal CDC presentation, first obtained by the Washington Post, that claimed that it was time to “acknowledge the war has changed.”
The leaked report, compiled of several different studies, claimed that the variant causes more severe illness among the unvaccinated and is more transmissible than Ebola, the flu and even the common cold, regardless of vaccination status.
The Delta strain is now the most dominant one in the US.
“Delta variant vaccine breakthrough cases may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases,” the report claims.
The unidentified authors insisted that it was now time for experts to stop claiming that breakthrough infections were “rare” — even arguing that “universal masking is essential” given the spread amongst those vaccinated.
The presentation was based largely on unpublished research, The Washington Post noted — with warnings in large red type also noting that it was “preliminary data, subject to change.”
It was quickly panned by critics, who noted the vague data used in raising the alarm.
“Democrats are basing their new mask mandate on a 100-person study from India,” tweeted Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.
“It didn’t pass peer-review and uses vaccines that aren’t approved in America. This is the ‘science’ they are using to try to control Americans!” he wrote.
The presentation did mention studies in India, although it also referenced research of a community spread in Massachusetts, as well as work in Los Angeles, Scotland, Singapore and Israel.
Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw also insisted that “the CDC has presented no data showing vaccinated people are spreading COVID infections” — taking aim at the lack of transparency by the public federal agency in not releasing this report publicly.
“If you’re vaccinated, you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than dying of COVID,” the former SEAL tweeted.
“Our government, now considering lockdowns, has lost its effing mind,” he said.
Fellow Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday also tweeted that “the CDC’s willingness to twist facts for political expediency is stunning.”
He shared a video of him asking if there has “ever been an institution in American public life that has more discredited itself more rapidly than the CDC.”
“Today, the CDC has willingly allowed itself to be politicized, to behave as an arm of the DNC, and their credibility is in tatters. It is a joke,” Cruz said.
The Washington Post noted that the leaked presentation was informational, rather than official CDC policy. The agency did not respond to the paper’s requests for comment.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, ripped the way the latest mask advice was given without clear data and justification.
“You don’t, when you’re a public health official, want to be saying, ‘Trust us, we know, we can’t tell you how,’” Jamieson told the Washington Post.
“The scientific norm suggests that when you make a statement based on science, you show the science.”
She also said the CDC made a “second mistake” in that “they do not appear to be candid about the extent to which breakthroughs are yielding hospitalizations.”
The report was primarily offering advice on how the CDC should handle “communication challenges” now that evidence suggests even those jabbed are getting infected and spreading the virus. It expressed concern about how the findings “may reduce public confidence in vaccines.”
It noted “concerns from local health departments,” and insisted it was time to stop describing breakthrough infections as a “small percentage of cases.”
