In the face of the Delta variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have reiterated that vaccines overwhelmingly prevent serious COVID illness and …
In the face of the Delta variant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have reiterated that vaccines overwhelmingly prevent serious COVID illness and death, period — instead, the agency created a “fiasco” by offering “murky new guidance without backup evidence,” fumes The Wall Street Journal editorial board. “The CDC should be a source of fact and reason, not a hair-on-fire spreader of fear. The agency could start by explaining that COVID cases have been increasing across the US and that more vaccinated individuals are testing positive. But most of these ‘breakthrough’ cases are mild or asymptomatic.” As for the re-masking guidance, “the risk is that some people may conclude from this new CDC guidance that, since we still need masks, there’s no need to be vaccinated,” thus undermining the vaccination drive. “Time and again in this pandemic, the CDC has been a source of confusion or ineptitude. And Washington wonders why Americans have lost confidence in COVID experts.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendation of universal masking in schools in the fall will ratchet up “classroom-infectiousness fear” and “encourage public schools to not open,” laments Reason’s Matt Welch.
