Doctor Goes Off on New CDC Mask Guidance: "Not Justifiable Whatsoever" and "Will Backfire"

quote:

---

Doctor Goes Off on New CDC Mask Guidance: 'Not Justifiable Whatsoever,' Will 'Backfire Big'
by Guy Benson
Jul 28, 2021
...

Alvarez also criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci, rebuked the idea of asking vaccinated people to mask up, and blasted the recommended policy of mask requirements for children in classrooms:

"I respect him as a scientist, but I don't respect his public policies anymore...For the 70 percent that are now protected [by vaccines], let things continue to move on...This is not science. These are political and social mandates...don't punish the children."

And to his point about seeking to persuade vaccine skeptics with "positive education," Alvarez reiterated his strong endorsement of the vaccines' efficacy and safety: "This is one of the most effective vaccines with the fewest side effects that I think the history of science has ever created," he said. Meanwhile, perhaps the single most powerful journalist in America in terms of influencing COVID policy is the New York Times' David Leonhardt. He is also rapping the CDC over its decision, noting its practical incoherence, as well as the poor public messaging supporting it:
...

Clear messaging is one of the most powerful tools that public health officials have, but only when they use it. And the C.D.C. and the Biden administration did not do so yesterday. They failed to convey whether they wanted the entire country to begin changing its behavior — or whether they were focusing on only some regions, which happen to be the very places that require special attention to reach...Some experts also said that Americans, frustrated by the long pandemic, need to hear a clear plan for what will allow the masks to come off. “If we want to continue to ask people to step up,” Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist, told The Times, “we need to give them a vision of what we’re working toward.”
...

Telling jabbed people to wear masks is an unscientific punishment that disincentives vaccination and casts pointless and inaccurate doubt on the effectiveness of the vaccines. The goal has never been, and cannot be, total eradication of COVID, which looks like it will be an endemic illness in our society indefinitely. Treating that as the goal, as opposed to a manageable and non-crippling challenge like the flu, feeds into the perception that there is no exit strategy, and no meaningful limiting principle on the various "temporary" measures being pushed. Unvaccinated adults are making choices for themselves, and vaccinated people shouldn't be held hostage by others' decisions. And the recommendations for children are just mind-boggling. We know for a fact that kids are not negatively impacted by COVID, thank goodness.
...

By backsliding into vaccinated masking for no good reason now, any future recommendations on this front -- even in response to a more serious (hypothetical) threat that may warrant mitigation measures -- will be greeted with less seriousness and compliance because massive swaths of the country no longer trust the CDC on any of this. Congratulations, team "science."

Congratulations, team "science"

---