The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reportedly based its new mask guidance on a report that found the coronavirus Delta variant is as infectious as chickenpox, possibly even among vaccinated people — but the “preliminary data” quickly came under fire from Republicans on Friday.
The CDC responded by publishing an “early release” version of a non-peer-reviewed study of just 469 COVID-19 cases tied to large, public events in Barnstable County, Mass., earlier this month.
In a statement, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky claimed her agency was using “the best available science and data to quickly and transparently inform the American public about threats to health” and promised to share additional information “when available.”
The uproar followed the leak of a 25-page CDC document to the Washington Post, which reported on it Thursday night and said officials were so alarmed by the findings they decided to issue an about-face on mask-wearing before making the underlying data public.
The new guidance, announced Tuesday, advised fully vaccinated Americans to wear masks in indoor public places in areas where the coronavirus is surging.
The CDC also recommended that students in kindergarten through 12th grade, their teachers and school staffers all wear masks whether or not they’ve been vaccinated.
The move led the Capitol’s attending physician to mandate masks in the House chamber, committee rooms and office buildings — sparking a Thursday protest in which dozens of House Republicans marched bare-faced onto the floor of the Senate, which is exempt from the mask rule.
The report obtained by the Washington Post says that the Delta variant is more transmissible than the original coronavirus, as well as the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, the seasonal flu and smallpox.
It’s also as infectious as the highly contagious chickenpox disease, and may be transmissible by vaccinated people who suffer “breakthrough” infections, according to the report, titled “Improving communications around vaccine breakthrough and vaccine effectiveness.”
The report, dated Thursday, urges that officials “acknowledge that the war has changed,” even though it’s based on unpublished data from a combination of outbreak investigations and outside studies.
Several pages of the slideshow-style presentation are also marked “preliminary data, subject to change” in red letters.
GOP members of Congress quickly pounced on the report’s findings.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) sarcastically tweeted, “Is WaPo revealing Big Government has not been honest with the American people? (I’m shocked.)”
“If vaccines don’t stop spread, this time we should protect the vulnerable, isolate the sick, and offer some form of early treatment. We must NOT shut down again,” he added.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) tweeted: “Your daily reminder that the CDC has presented no data showing vaccinated people are spreading COVID infections,”
“If you’re vaccinated, you have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than dying of COVID. Our government, now considering lockdowns, has lost its effing mind,” the former Navy SEAL added.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also tweeted, “The CDC’s willingness to twist facts for political expediency is stunning.”
Cruz also included a video clip of himself on the Senate floor, asking whether 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,” he said.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also attacked the agency in a tweet posted about an hour before the Washington Post report went online.
“Democrats are basing their new mask mandate on a 100-person study from India,” he wrote.
“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!”
It’s unclear if McCarthy was referring to Thursday’s report, which references studies in India, Los Angeles, Scotland, Singapore and Israel, in addition to Massachusetts.
