The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention altered its mask guidance after a study found the Delta COVID-19 variant appeared to spread as easily as chickenpox, possibly even among the vaccinated, according to internal federal documents — but many critics have argued that the data is weak and not peer-reviewed.
An internal CDC presentation, largely based on unpublished research, suggests that the latest strain is almost a completely different virus to the initial outbreak, according to The Washington Post, which first obtained the slides.
The variant — now the most dominant one in the US — causes more severe illness and is more transmissible than the viruses that cause Ebola, flu and even the common cold, the sleaked report claims.
Despite previous claims from the CDC that breakthrough infections among the vaccinated were “rare,” the latest information also suggests Delta is spreading just as easily among the jabbed, the report warns.
“Delta variant vaccine breakthrough cases may be as transmissible as unvaccinated cases,” the report concedes — adding that it still poses a serious threat to the most vulnerable, including those in nursing homes.
It argues that it is now time to stop “update communications describing breakthrough cases as ‘rare’ or as a ‘small percentage,’” the slides show.
It said it was time to “acknowledge the war has changed,” which insiders told the DC paper was the reasoning for the CDC’s controversial decision this week to change its recommendations for vaccinated people to wear masks indoors in areas with low vaccination rates.
Even that was less than those behind the report had recommended, however.
“Given higher transmissibility and current vaccine coverage, universal masking is essential,” the document had argued.
The CDC reportedly plans to release even more information Friday as it continues to be ridiculed for the about-turn in mask-wearing for those who’ve been jabbed.
But even the alarming report in the leaked documents failed to persuade many critics, who noted the vague data used in raising the alarm.
“Democrats are basing their new mask mandate on a 100-person study from India,” tweeted Republican leader Kevin McCarthy.
“It didn’t pass peer-review and uses vaccines that aren’t approved in America. This is the ‘science’ they are using to try to control Americans!” he wrote.
However, a federal official insisted to The New York Times that the report was leaked because “the CDC is very concerned with the data coming in that Delta is a very serious threat that requires action now.”
“Waiting even days to publish the data could result in needless suffering and as public health professionals we cannot accept that,” a source told the Washington Post.
The document warns of clear “communication challenges” that the health agency faces now that it is obvious that vaccinated people appear just as likely to get infected and spread the virus.
It insists that vaccines are still largely effective “against hospitalization/ death.”
But while the shots prevent around 90 percent of “severe disease,” they “may be less effective at preventing infection or transmission,” the report concedes.
The experts admitted that the latest warnings will only increase the difficulty in getting wider inoculation now the “public [is] convinced vaccines no longer work.”
Matthew Seeger, a risk communication expert at Wayne State University in Detroit, told The Washington Post that the CDC dug its own grave by “telling the public these are miracle vaccines.”
“We have probably fallen a little into the trap of over-reassurance, which is one of the challenges of any crisis communication circumstance.
However, John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told the Times it just reaffirmed that “Delta is the troubling variant we already knew it was.”
“But the sky isn’t falling and vaccination still protects strongly against the worse outcomes,” he insisted.