BUFFALO (WBEN) - The CDC reportedly has data showing that fully vaccinated people may be able to transmit the delta variant, a finding that has prompted its new masking advice.
Earlier this week, the CDC shifted policy, saying fully vaccinated people should resume wearing masks under certain circumstances as the delta variant continues to run rampant across many parts of the country.
The agency suggests masks be worn in indoor public spaces in communities with a high risk of transmission, as well as universal masking for teachers, and students, regardless of vaccination status.
CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told the New York Times that new data shows that the delta variant can "thrive" in the airwaves of vaccinated individuals.
Regardless of the findings, Dr. Amesh Adalga, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University, isn't sure masking vaccinated individuals makes much sense.
"I don't know the value that you're going to get out of having fully vaccinated people where masks in terms of the trajectory of the pandemic," said Adalja on with WBEN Friday morning. "We are in the pandemic of the unvaccinated - it is unvaccinated people who are infecting other unvaccinated individuals and who are the ones in the hospitals.
"You go to any hospital, and I'm sure it's the case in Buffalo, 96%-plus are going to be not vaccinated," Adalga continued. "This is something that illustrates the vaccines are working because these breakthrough infections that are occurring are not clinically significant, meaning they're very mild or with no symptoms at all, and that's a win for the vaccine."
Adalja was also confused as to why the CDC would update their masking guidance without simultaneously releasing the data to support said guidance, calling it an "unforced error."
"I don't think that we want to be in the business of changing policy based on something that is very rare and kind of clinically inconsequential when we have this huge cyclone of a problem with the unvaccinated, and I think that's what we need to be focusing," said Adalja. "I wonder, also, if the guidance is going to increase vaccine hesitancy because the people who aren't vaccinated now haven't seen the vaccine as a value, and now they're probably going to see it as less of a value, especially in those places in the country where there is higher substantial spread."
