Breaking Down the CDC's Rationale for Updating Masking Guidance
A High Viral Load of BS
Thanks to some actual journalism from the WaPo we've gotten an inside look behind the curtain to see what made the CDC take it's dramatic flip flop on masking and thus send the national media back into a panic. This comes in the form of a confidential presentation given inside the CDC on Vaccine Breakthrough Cases. To those of us with a critical eye, it seems long on panic, short on sources, and it leaves us wanting.
This confidential CDC presentation starts by summarizing information on breakthrough Covid cases and right off the bat we find that the CDC has been lying to the public for months. Remember all the spin that “99.XX% of Covid hospitalizations and Deaths were among the unvaccinated.” Those numbers alway seemed completely unrealistic but it was hard to question them without real data which is hard to find on state dashboards. Welp, turns out the CDC knew that over 15% of Covid deaths in May were among the vaccinated and the number is undoubtedly even higher today...
What better way to panic the public than to give them a false sense of security...
Next the presentation turns to current estimates of Vaccine Efficacy showing many studies that the vaccines remain highly effective at least out to 3 or 4 months while admitting that among the immuno-compromised and those in care homes efficacy is lessened. (This was always known to be true which is one more reason they never should have lied to us by stating the vaccine was "100% effective at eliminating hospitalization and death")
This is where the presentation goes off the rails!
Next they turn to the "Delta Variant" and state that the Delta variant is both more deadly than the original variants of Covid and also many times more contagious with an Ro of 5 to 10 making it about as contagious as Chicken Pox! They don't cite a single study or source to back up these claims, and they defy all evidence from the real world!
The best data on the Delta variant comes from the UK, and shows that it's likely only 5 to 10% more contagious than the Alpha variant and if anything less deadly than older strains of the disease.
They go on to show data claiming falling vaccine efficacy around the world between Delta and past variants, however many of these studies are flawed due to testing vaccine efficiency at different intervals after vaccination. Are they measuring falling vaccine efficacy due to Delta or due to waning efficiently more than 4 months out from inoculation? Data from Israel hints that it may be the latter...
Regardless, they take this assumption of lower vaccine efficacy against Delta and couple it with suspect data on "high viral loads" in breakthrough infections taken from a failed study from India and an outlier outbreak in Massachusetts. They then produce the model you see below:
My jaw dropped when I first saw this slide!
Look at the model's assumptions:
50% of infections are reported? It's unlikely this was true at any time during the pandemic, even today. The CDC’s own estimates of total infections would say otherwise.
Masks are 60% effective at source control?! And 30% protective?! No sources cited here, and how could they? This goes against all real world evidence and the only RTC conducted on masking against Covid.
An Ro of 5? As explained earlier this is an insane assumption, no data shows us Covid is this infectious!
Only 5% Natural Immunity!?!?! This assumption is beyond insane, borderline negligent. The CDC's own estimates indicate that over a third of the county has already been infected!
Put it all together and you get the CDC's conclusion:
"Given higher transmissible and current vaccine coverage, universal masking is ESSENTIAL to reduce transmission of the Delta variant"
Crazy assumptions about the contagiousness of breakthrough cases, the effectiveness of masks, the contagiousness of the virus and the lack of immunity in the population. That's what it took to come up with this insane recommendation.
A couple weeks from now when the Delta wave peaks in the South they'll point to this guidance as the reason why. Even as nearly no one in states like Florida will give this guidance even a second thought...
Lastly, after a summary slide which repeats all of the BS from before, the presentation goes on to next steps and states that the CDC should communicate to the public that "The War has Changed". And therein lies the rub. Our Public Health Better's are ready to fight a Forever War against Covid. They are blind to the damage they have caused over the last 18 months and they are still fixated on their quixotic quest to rid the world of a highly contagious respiratory disease.
If the news over the last week has taught us anything, it's that Covid is not going away. Yet we also needn't fear it. Yes, the vaccine is not a cure all magic elixir. However, they still offer better protection to the vulnerable and as long as we understand that a "case" is nothing to fear for the vast majority of us, we can learn to live our lives without worrying about this virus any longer.
This presentation doesn't show the CDC as being well reasoned or basing their guidance on the best evidence at hand. Instead it shows they are caught up in moral panic, combined with the cognitive dissonance in refusing to admit that every measure taken over the last year plus had no effect against the virus, only adverse effects to the public.
Anyway 0 and 2...