CDC director defers to Democratic governors on ending mask mandates, says federal guidelines won't change



Biden administration health officials said Wednesday that it is still too early for states to ease school mask mandates as Democratic governors are finally catching up to their Republican peers and ending masking requirements.

At a press briefing Wednesday, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky was asked if her agency's masking guidance would be updated now that several states are acting to lift their mandates.

"We certainly understand the need and desire to be flexible and we want to ensure the public health guidance that we're providing meets the moment that we're in," Walensky said. She added that while falling COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are "encouraging," deaths and hospitalizations are still too high for the CDC to change its masking recommendations.

Walensky's comments come as Democratic governors in Connecticut, Delaware, and New Jersey, as well as Massachusetts' Republican governor, announced this week that statewide mask mandates would not be renewed when they expire, transferring decisions over mask requirements to local school districts. New York and California will also end their indoor mask mandates for public spaces, but have not announced whether separate school mask mandates will expire too.

The governors in these states say the mandates are no longer needed because of declining COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations after the Omicron surge, as well as the widespread availability of vaccines and booster shots.

Asked if CDC data backs up decisions to lift mask mandates, Walensky deferred to the governors' judgement.

"We've always said that these decisions are going to have to be made at the local level. And that policies at the local level will look at local cases, they'll look at how local hospitals are doing, they'll look at local vaccination rates," Walensky said.

She continued: "And they, as I understand it, in many of these decisions are using a phased approach. Not all of these decisions are being made to stop things tomorrow, but they're looking at a phased approach. So what I would say is, again, they have to be done at the local level, but I'm really encouraged that cases are continuing to drop dramatically. Hospitalizations are continuing to drop dramatically as people are making these decisions and as we are working on our guidance. So I'm encouraged to see those trends."

Still, the governors lifting mask mandates are doing so contrary to the CDC's official recommendations. Walensky said the agency is working to update its guidance eventually, but not right now.

"We are prepared, we are working on that guidance. We are working on following the trends for the moment," Walensky said. "Our hospitalizations are still high. Our death rates are still high. So as we work towards that, and as we are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet."

The CDC on Monday reported a 7-day average of 247,320 COVID-19 cases per day, a decrease of about 44% over the previous week. The agency also counted 13,066 new hospital admissions, a decrease of about 25% from last week. Deaths increased slightly, rising 3% with an average of 2,404 deaths reported per day.

The Biden administration has so far taken a much softer tone toward the Democratic governors ignoring CDC guidance on masks than it did toward Republican officials who did the same thing last year.

When Republican governors in Texas and Mississippi ended statewide mask mandates and reopened businesses in March 2021, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci called the decision "inexplicable."

“I understand the need to want to get back to normality, but you’re only going to set yourself back if you just completely push aside the public health guidelines — particularly when we’re dealing with anywhere from 55 [thousand] to 70,000 infections per day in the United States,” Fauci said, quoting what were the most recent average daily case counts at the time. President Joe Biden piled on the Republican governors who lifted mask requirements too, calling their decisions "Neanderthal thinking."

Those numbers are now dwarfed by the over 247,000 average daily case counts caused by the Omicron variant, which is more contagious than other variants but causes less severe disease.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) said last year they were lifting mask mandates because of falling cases, hospitalizations, and the availability of vaccines. Both southern states without mask mandates and northern states with mask mandates went on to see surges in coronavirus cases caused by the Delta and Omicron variants.

Biden administration details vaccination plan for kids ages 5 to 11



The White House on Wednesday told reporters the details of its plan to provide COVID-19 vaccines to millions of U.S. children ages 5 to 11 as soon as government health agencies authorize the shot for them.

Once the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention give the go-ahead, the Biden administration says it is ready to deliver shots to arms for 28 million children this holiday season.

The White House said vaccines will be available at doctors' offices, hospitals, pharmacies, community health centers, and school- and community-based sites. By partnering with state governments, the federal government has enlisted more than 25,000 pediatricians' offices and other primary care sites and more than 100 children's hospitals and health systems nationwide to administer the vaccines.

FDA officials are currently reviewing Pfizer/BioNTech's application seeking authorization of its two-dose COVID-19 vaccine for children younger than 12. According to Reuters, an FDA panel of outside advisers will make a recommendation on the vaccine's use for younger children on Oct. 26.

A similar advisory panel for the CDC will meet Nov. 2-3 to discuss the vaccine's use for young children.

"We expect the FDA and CDC's decision on Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 through 11 in the next couple of weeks," White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Jeffrey Zients said at a COVID-19 Response Team press briefing Wednesday. "We know millions of parents have been waiting for COVID-19 vaccine for kids in this age group, and should the FDA and CDC authorize the vaccine, we will be ready to get shots in arms."

Zients said the administration has worked with Pfizer to modify the packaging of pediatric vaccine doses to make it easier to distribute for children, including using smaller needles.

"By sending vaccines to pediatricians, pharmacies, community health centers, and rural health centers; working with children's hospitals to host vaccination sites, including on nights and weekends; helping schools stand up vaccination clinics; and deploying mobile clinics to meet families where they are, we will ensure that vaccinations for kids ages 5 through 11 are easy, convenient, and accessible to every family," Zients said, adding that the administration is prioritizing "equity and fairness" in the pediatric vaccine program.

While children can get sick with COVID-19, those infected with the disease typically have milder symptoms than adults and some may not show symptoms at all. The American Academy of Pediatrics said that U.S. children represent about 15% of all COVID-19 cases. The CDC added that hospitalization rates for COVID-19 are lower compared to adults, but some children develop acute symptoms that require hospitalization.

According to the CDC, between August 2020 and August 2021, 1,790 children ages 0-17 were hospitalized with COVID-19 and a total of eight in-hospital deaths were recorded related to the virus, out of 73 million American children.

Underlying health conditions like obesity, diabetes, and asthma may increase the risk of children developing serious illness. Additionally, a phenomena known as "long covid" has been observed in children that contract the illness and experience fatigue, muscle and joint pain, headache, insomnia, respiratory problems and heart palpitations well after initial recovery. The long-term effects of COVID-19 in children is still being studied.

Speaking at Wednesday's news conference, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Americans "cannot be complacent" and children in schools must be protected from COVID-19 as the winter months approach.

"Right now, we are going to continue to recommend masks in all schools for all people in those schools. And we will look forward to scaling up pediatric vaccination during this period of time," she said.

Oliver Contreras/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Dr. Fauci says vaccinated people can't dine indoors or go to the movies



President Joe Biden's top health adviser and coronavirus expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Monday that even people who receive a coronavirus vaccine won't be able to go out to eat or go to the movies because of "the safety of society."

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke at a White House press briefing via teleconference with the administration's COVID-19 response team during which a reporter asked about the messaging around vaccines.

"There's a lot of conversation about how you need to keep doing the same things even after you get vaccinated — you know, like wearing a mask, not seeing your family, things like that. Do you think that's preventing people from being more enthusiastic about getting vaccines? And may we see that change in the future?" Los Angeles Times reporter Chris Megerian asked.

Fauci answered that there are several things even vaccinated people will not be able to do as long as there is a high rate of coronavirus in the U.S.

This week, the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus topped 500,000. According to NBC News, more than 28,206,600 cases have been confirmed in the U.S. Though the average number of daily new cases is in decline, Facui warned that "the burden of virus in society will be very high, which it is right now."

"So there are things, even if you're vaccinated, that you're not going to be able to do in society: for example, indoor dining, theaters, places where people congregate," Fauci said.

"That's because of the safety of society. You, yourself, what you can do when you are together with another person, we are looking at that, and we're going to try and find out very quickly what recommendations could be made about what people can do," he added.

Fauci explained that health experts do not know whether a vaccinated person, though he may be protected from symptoms of disease, could still carry the coronavirus in the back of their nasal cavity at a contagious level. That is why he and other health experts recommend that vaccinated people continue to wear masks, to prevent potential spread of the virus to others.

He said that researchers hope to find that the virus level is "quite low and you're not transmitting it," but clarified "we don't know that know. And for that reason, we want to make sure that people continue to wear masks despite the fact that they're vaccinated."

Fauci has come under fire from critics for sending "mixed messages" about COVID-19, masks, vaccines, and when the country can return to normal.

As Fox News recounted, previously Fauci said that about 70% of Americans need to be vaccinated before the U.S. can reach herd immunity to the virus, before adjusting that number to 80%. He claimed that he revised the number after taking into account public opinion surveys.

"When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75%," Fauci told the New York Times. "Then, when newer surveys said 60% or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85."

"We have to have some humility here," he added. "We really don't know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90%. But, I'm not going to say 90%."

Last August, Fauci said that Americans could begin to return to normal when as few as 50% to 60% of people were vaccinated. But in November, he told CNN that public health measures should remain in place because there's no way of knowing how effective the vaccines are, even if they report an effectiveness of 90%-95% in studies. Then just last Sunday on CNN, Fauci said Americans should continue wearing masks in public into 2022.

In that same interview, Fauci would not tell CNN's Dana Bash if grandparents who have received the vaccine will be able to spend time with their grandchildren.

"You know I'm not going to make a recommendations except to say, these are things that we really do everyday, Dana," he said.

"We look at that, we look at the data, we look at what's evolving about how many people are getting vaccinated and there will be recommendations coming out, I don't want to make a recommendation now on public TV."

This messaging stands in stark contrast to other countries, like Israel, where the people are being told that getting the vaccine means you can return to normal life immediately.

As The Guardian reported:

Israel is preparing itself to be split in half from next week, with the government creating a new privileged tier in society: the vaccinated.

Nearly 50% of the population who have chosen to be inoculated against Covid will be provided with a "green pass" a week after their second shot, as will those with presumed immunity after contracting the disease.

From Sunday, the pass will grant access to gyms, hotels, swimming pools, concerts, and places of worship. Restaurants and bars will be included from early March.

For the rest, including children under 16 who are not eligible for coronavirus shots, many of the activities shut down during the year-long crisis will remain off-limits, although some will be available if they provide a negative coronavirus test.

Meanwhile in the U.S., top health experts tell a different story. Following Fauci's comments, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Dr. Rochelle Walensky added that the benefit of receiving both doses of the coronavirus vaccine is that "there is no longer a need to quarantine after you've been exposed."

She promised that additional guidance regarding what vaccinated people can and cannot do would be forthcoming.