OUCHIE! — The Weekly Opine

Freshly washed masks drying for use in the coming weeks and months. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

The good doc and CDC stumble

The year was 1993. The date was January 31. The game was Super Bowl XXVII. In the fourth quarter, Buffalo Bills quarterback Frank Reich fumbled the football near midfield. Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Leon Lett scooped up the ball and headed toward the end zone. Lett rumbled across the 50…40…30…20…and 10-yard lines on his route to paydirt. Dallas already led 52-17 so Lett’s apparent touchdown jaunt had no bearing on the outcome.

However, on the way to the Forum, a funny thing happened to Leon Lett. Buffalo wide receiver Don Beebe relentlessly chased after Lett. At the 5-yard-line Lett prematurely began celebrating, waving the football at his side as he approached the end zone. Beebe caught Lett and batted the ball out of his hand at the 2-yard-line. Replays clearly showed Lett fumbled the ball before crossing the goal line. Leon Lett, now a defensive line coach for the Cowboys, earned a place in sports infamy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with America’s leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, one week ago put themselves at risk of becoming the Leon Letts of the healthcare profession (inept former CDC director, Robert Redfield, is surely relieved).

In a surprising, potentially absentminded decision, Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky bowed to public pressure and announced that masks are essentially no longer necessary for fully vaccinated Americans. Geez. Now, confusion stretches across this great land. And the increased distrust Americans have for one another could ratchet up even more.

Messed up

If you’ve observed Dr. Leana Wen provide commentary on cable news, you know she does not deal in hyperbole. She speaks in forceful but measured tones. Currently a visiting professor at George Washington University, Wen exudes straightforward confidence. She was formerly the city of Baltimore’s health commissioner.

Did the usually indefatigable Dr. Fauci just slip up? (Photo credit Men’s Health)

This week, in an article in the Washington Post, Wen called the CDC and Fauci’s decision “a major blunder.” It’s hard to disagree. Whereas the Dallas Cowboys were destroying the Buffalo Bills 52-17 when Leon Lett eased up too soon, in the case of the coronavirus pandemic, most of the damage has been administered by the virus on humans, not the other way around.

Fauci and the CDC downshifting is, at this moment, quite troubling. The great Formula One champion, Lewis Hamilton, will tell you that coasting around the racecourse near the end of a race is a surefire way to lose the gains your team worked so hard to achieve.

With respect to vaccines, we are unsure how long protection lasts. Will the CDC instruct us to re-up wearing masks six months or a year from now? Do we really have enough data about vaccines effectiveness against the myriad variants that pop up like spring dandelions?

National Nurses United stands firmly against the new guidelines. “The science show this is exactly the wrong time to be relaxing,” said Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United. The group says mask wearing should continue because new CDC guidelines are based on inconclusive studies.

Right now, America has positive momentum. But we are far from achieving the vaunted status called herd immunity. For some time, Dr. Fauci has talked of “herd immunity,” the moment when 75-percent of Americans are fully vaccinated. Today, we are at half that number, 37-percent. Hardly, the time to make unnecessary, risky decisions.

The truth speaks

Why the rush to de-mask? As a fully vaccinated person, I have no intention of shedding my mask. Errand at the grocery or home improvement store? Masked. Eating out at a restaurant? Masked, going to and from my table. Trip to village hall? Masked.

The most implausible part of the new guidelines is the CDC’s reliance on the honesty of individual Americans. The new guidance only works if people are honest about their vaccination status. We do, after all, live in a country where 25% of the people believe the last presidential election was rigged (it wasn’t) and another 15% know it wasn’t rigged but, for personal, political, and/or financial gain will say with a straight face it was rigged. (The 25% who think the election was fraudulent probably make up the same 25% who are anti-vaxxers. God bless America.)

Dr. Fauci and the CDC make an assumption that we can depend on the trustworthiness of every American. They also assume the new guidelines will motivate people to get vaccinated.

Across America, Center for Disease Control satellite offices - like this one in Chicago - recently had a curveball tossed at them by CDC headquarters. (Photo credit The Weekly Opine)

Meanwhile, the U.S. still leads the world with over 585,000 dead from COVID-19. Nearly 33 million Americans have contracted the virus. For perspective, as bad as things are in India, that country still trails the USA. India has 25 million cases with around 280,000 deaths.

Although the pandemic disaster rages in India, things have improved in America. However, now is not the time for the U.S. to mimic Leon Lett. Evidence, compiled on numerous occasions since February 2020, teaches us the coronavirus has no concept of borders. The pandemic raises up with a vengeance whenever authorities pump the brakes on mask-wearing, social distancing, and handwashing. And arbitrary metrics are sometimes revealed as, well…arbitrary.

So, the brain-freeze displayed by CDC Director Walensky and Dr. Fauci is disappointing. States and municipalities scramble to make sense of it while deciding whether (or not) to follow the abrupt, new CDC guidelines. Will state and local officials honor their own data points before they open-up further?

Some states, who from the jump played loose with safety guidelines, see this as their golden opportunity to fling the door wide open. Poor Katy has little chance of barring them.

Pop up tales

Ink from the new guidelines – which state that fully vaccinated folks can roam sans mask almost anywhere except healthcare facilities and public transportation – was barely dry when word arrived that eight vaccinated members of the New York Yankees organization tested positive (a ninth tested positive a few days later).

The good news is the vaccines appear to be effective, having protected the Yanks from hospital admission. The bad news is celebrity, late-night TV comedian Bill Maher, himself fully vaccinated, caught the bug last week, too. Not good timing on the heels of new CDC guidance.

There are prominent doctors in Japan demanding the Summer Olympics Games be cancelled due to the ongoing pandemic. (Photo credit Amazon)

Out East, in Japan, an association of doctors urges the International Olympics Committee to cancel the Summer Games. The coronavirus, far from tamed in Japan, has that country’s hospitals near capacity with little room to handle any outbreak tied to an influx of Olympics athletes and sports officials from around the globe.

Dr. Wen cautions that by issuing new guidelines, the CDC and Fauci undermine their own goals. As it is, there are still higher-risk individuals who have not been vaccinated. Wen says that lifting the mask mandate puts certain communities at risk. And low risk activities now become higher risk. There is an opportunity for new hotspots to emerge. On CNN this week, Wen plainly said, “there is no reason to do [new guidelines] right now.”

It is not clear if vaccinated people who catch the virus (e.g., New York Yankees) can transmit it to others. Even though the new guidelines are not a green light for everyone to go without a mask, you can bet anti-vaxxers will seize this opportunity to circulate without masks. Some likely will catch the virus and spread it to others. Furthermore, is it fair that those who currently cannot receive the vaccination be subject to the mercy of Americans who believe the virus is a hoax?

Amazingly, by their own admission, the CDC is counting on individuals to do the right thing.

For the first time since the Biden administration began, it appears common sense, at least temporarily, abandoned the building.

Hopefully, the CDC and Dr. Fauci are correct...