Monday, July 26, 2021

Humor: Important stuff going on!!We had at least two zoom meetings today with Jeff, Rochelle, Vivek, and Bechara to discuss the upcoming change in masking guidelines that the CDC will be proposing. It relates to the fact that data or showing that the level of virus in the nasopharynx of vaccinated people with asymptomatic breakthrough infections is similar according to CT values to that in individuals who are infected asymptomatically and who have not been vaccinated. These data are strongly suggestive that individuals who are vaccinated and who get infected can't transmit the virus two others as easily ask an unvaccinated people. This is triggering the need to tell vaccinated people that when they go to situations that are indoors that now they have to wear a mask or should at least seriously consider wearing a mask depending on the level of infection in the community where they are living. Rochelle is really having a very tough time in negotiating this with Jeff in the context of “her team” at CDC that seems to be operating in their usual manner independently of running things by the White House. For example at the end of a long and tortuous discussion about getting the wording correct in the new guideline, Rochelle let us know that two days from now (Wednesday) the CDC will be coming out with an MMWR that will overlap with what we have been wordsmithing for the guideline. Jeff and everyone else was blown away that these two parallel things were going on and we did not even know about it. I feel badly for Rochelle since she is dealing with an ingrained CDC system that has been that way for the decades that I have been dealing with them. Jeff and the White House Comms people (Courtney Rowe) are very concerned about mixed messaging. We decided that we would sleep on this and address it again in the morning.