Garbarino: CDC must produce more data to validate updated mask guidelines

U.S. Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) requested additional information and data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky to support the agency’s updated mask guidelines for both vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans. 

“After 15 months of abiding by public health safety guidelines, vaccinated Americans were able to rejoice and to return to some semblance of normalcy,” Rep. Garbarino wrote in an Aug. 6 letter sent to Walensky. “However, the CDC has elicited increasing confusion with its recent reversal, failing to be fully transparent with the data it is using to amend its latest mask guidance.”

Citing the spread of the Delta variant across the United States, the CDC on June 27 issued updated mask guidelines recommending that fully vaccinated people who live in places with high or substantial transmission of the virus should wear masks in public indoor spaces, according to the congressman’s letter. 

Additionally, the CDC recommended universal indoor masking for all teachers, staff, students, and visitors to schools, regardless of vaccination status, wrote Rep. Garbarino, adding that “the concept that children must now wear face coverings while attending school ignores and rejects available scientific data on the issue, given that countless studies have shown that children experience lower infection and transmission rates than adults.”

“Regardless of which variant we discuss, the one constant is that vaccines have proven to be the most reliable protection against the virus, as over 97 percent of the people hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated,” wrote Rep. Garbarino, who asked Walensky to answer several questions to help members of Congress adequately inform their constituents on “what is needed to finally defeat this virus.”

For example, Rep. Garbarino requested data used by the CDC to reach its decision to reinstitute specific mask mandates, as well as why the CDC decided to discontinue monitoring all reported vaccine breakthrough cases in May.