Fauci Says New Mask Guidelines For Vaccinated Americans Under "Active Consideration" Amid Delta Outbreak
Remember when the US government and top health officials told Americans to get vaccines so life can return to normal?
Think again. On Sunday, NIAID director Anthony Fauci admitted to CNN's "State of the Union" that health officials may revise mask guidelines for those who are vaccinated, telling host Jake Tapper that bringing back mask mandates for vaccinated folks is "under active consideration."
FAUCI: Revising mask guidelines for vaccinated Americans is "under active consideration." pic.twitter.com/J3DcZet6rt
— Carly Ortiz-Lytle (@intlcarly) July 25, 2021
"If you look at the inflection of the curve of new cases and, as you said in the run-in to this interview, it is among the unvaccinated. And since we have 50% of the country that not fully vaccinated, that's a problem," said Fauci,director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adding "The CDC agrees with that ability and discretion capability to say, you know, you're in a situation where we're having a lot of dynamics of infection."
"Even if you are vaccinated, you should wear a mask. That's a local decision that's not incompatible with the CDC's overall recommendations that give a lot of discretion to the locals," he said.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles County just reinstated its mask mandate because of the emerging Delta variant.
Fauci also said booster shots could be introduced as a way to prevent virus transmission.
"You've got to look at the data, and the data that's evolving from Israel and from Pfizer indicates that it looks like there may be some diminution in protection," he said.
Fauci also pushed back against Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Washington Post columnist Josh Rogan after he repeatedly denied that the NIH was funding 'gain-of-function' research in Wuhan, China.
Fauci then denounces the "inflammatory statements" about him and U.S. funding in Wuhan as beneath him: "I'm a scientist and my job...is to be a scientist and a public health official. I certainly don't like how all of this has turned out to be so contentious." pic.twitter.com/lNEVN1n2K2
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 23, 2021
On Friday, Fauci praised scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology and defended his funding of bat coronavirus research.
"You know, it’s more complicated than that … If you look at the research that was done, it was research that was highly recommended by peer review, our United States peer reviews. It got a very high score in the peer review system," said Fauci.
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