No Transparency: CDC Withholds Data Behind Coronavirus Surrender

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky speaks to the press after visiting the Hynes Convention
Erin Clark-Pool/Getty Images

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has cited only “unpublished data” as the rationale for its surrender to the Chinese coronavirus, mandating vaccinated people wear masks.

The federal health agency has failed to present the data behind its updated mask guidance, which requires vaccinated individuals to wear a mask indoors in public in areas of “substantial or high transmission.” Instead, it has cited “CDC COVID-19 [Chinese coronavirus] Response Team, unpublished data, 2021,” a vague reference leaving many asking questions.

“While the CDC issued their guidance yesterday at about 3 p.m., they have not yet released their scientific reports on the data that underlies their recommendation,” New York City Health and Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz said Wednesday, emphasizing the need to review the data.

“I think we owe it to New Yorkers to very carefully, as you say, review that information and understand its implications,” Katz added. “Our focus has to be on getting people vaccinated.”

“They’re making a claim that people with delta who are vaccinated and unvaccinated have similar levels of viral load, but nobody knows what that means,” Gregg Gonsalves, an associate professor at the Yale School of Public Health, said, according to Chron.

“It’s meaningless unless we see the data,” he added.

Even New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), who hinted that the time for voluntary action on vaccination is over, said it is important to assess the research behind the mandate.

“We’re assessing the information. What really is important is to assess the research behind it. Which is what our team is doing,” de Blasio said. “We’ve got to make sure we understand the ramifications and what makes sense to do.”

Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, only cited “new scientific data” but provided little details, stating that “in rare occasions, some vaccinated people infected with the delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and pass the virus to others.”

According to Chron, the CDC will publish the data “imminently,” per a “federal official knowledgeable about the research but who was not authorized to be a spokesperson for the government.”

“These data were alarming and recently presented,” the official said. “We saw the data and thought it was urgent enough to act — in the context of a steeply rising, preventable fourth surge of COVID-19.”

Several Republican politicians have raised questions about the CDC’s data, drawing attention to a scientific brief updated July 27, in which the CDC cited research using vaccines not available in the U.S.
As Breitbart News detailed:

Indeed, the CDC did, in fact, feature a study that was based, partially, on a vaccine not yet approved in the U.S., rendering that particular finding inapplicable in the states.

“We used a Delta variant live virus isolate to test susceptibility to vaccine elicited neutralising antibodies in individuals vaccinated with ChAdOx-1 or BNT162b2,” the research reads. The first vaccine referenced is the Oxford-developed AstraZeneca vaccine, not used in the U.S., and the second is the Pfizer vaccine, one of the main vaccines used in the U.S. under Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). Notably, none of the vaccines in the U.S. have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Despite that, the CDC presumably used the study as a partial framework for its updated guidance, which instructs fully vaccinated people to mask up.

The CDC’s brief reads in part, “Studies from India with vaccines not authorized for use in the United States have noted relatively high viral loads and larger cluster sizes associated with infections with Delta, regardless of vaccination status.”

All the while, the Biden administration has not been able to explain how the mask mandate advances their narrative that vaccines are the primary way to return to normal life.

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