On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) retreated from controversial comments made by its director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who recently told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that people who are vaccinated against COVID never become infected or transmit the virus to others.
A CDC spokesperson told The New York Times, “Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview [with Maddow]. It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get Covid-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence.”
The public health agency was responding to criticism from scientists who said that current research was far from sufficient to claim that vaccinated people cannot spread the virus, according to The Times.
Dr. Paul Duprex, Director, Center for Vaccine Research, University of Pittsburgh, said the current data suggest that “it’s much harder for vaccinated people to get infected, but don’t think for one second that they cannot get infected.”
Referring to CDC data, Dr. Walensky told Maddow that one dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine was 80% effective at preventing the COVID-19 infection, and two doses were 90% effective, hinting that protection was complete and the transmission from vaccinated people might be unlikely.
She said in the interview, “Our data from the CDC today suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick. And that it’s not just in the clinical trials, it’s also in real-world data.”
Dr. Walensky also stressed the importance of continuing to wear facemasks and following precautionary measures, even for people who are vaccinated.
Prof. John Moore of Cornell University’s Weill Cornell Medicine College in New York said, “If Dr. Walensky had said most vaccinated people do not carry the virus, we would not be having this discussion.”
“What we know is the vaccines are very substantially effective against infection — there’s more and more data on that — but nothing is 100 percent,” he added. “It is an important public health message that needs to be gotten right.”
Dr. Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York said, “There cannot be any daylight between what the research shows — really impressive but incomplete protection — and how it is described.”
“This opens the door to the skeptics who think the government is sugarcoating the science,” he added, “and completely undermines any remaining argument why people should keep wearing masks after being vaccinated.”
The currently available vaccines have shown good efficacy at preventing severe illness and death from the virus. However, it is unclear how well they prevent infection.
Dr. Duprex said, “Clearly, some vaccinated people do get infected. We’re stopping symptoms, we’re keeping people out of hospitals. But we’re not making them completely resistant to an infection.”
Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases is once again on the rise, prompting officials to encourage people to protect themselves by getting vaccinated.
Dr. Moore said, “Vaccinated people should not be throwing away their masks at this point. This pandemic is not over.” The story was published Thursday in The New York Times.
