Thread by @phylogenomics

I am with @kprather88 here. Really vexed by what @CDCDirector and @CDCgov have done here. I mean, I get the general idea of trying to return to normal and encourage vaccination. But here are some thoughts for why I am still a bit vexed.

1) The vaccines are not fully effective. Therefore, some people who are vaccinated can still get sick, and die. And for some of the vaccines, the percentage of people protected is not insanely high.

2) Some vaccinated people can also still carry and transmit the virus.

3) Many people have still not had a chance to be vaccinated. Therefore, given #2 above, by saying vaccinated people don't need masks, the transmission rate could go up.

4) Many people followed the government recommendations to get some of the less effective vaccines. Given #2 above, this means they will be less protected.

5) There is a big issue with how long the vaccines effectiveness lasts. The CDC guidance basically seems to be saying there is not issue with this and that regardless of when you got vaccinated, all is good.

6) There is another issue with variants. There are many indications that some of the vaccines are less effective against some of the variants. This guidance seems to ignore that.

7) And an enormous issue, as brought up by 1000000s of people is, now we will almost certainly see many people lying about vaccine status in order to justify not wearing masks. This could be very problematic.

Fortunately, some places are already saying they will not fully follow this guidance

Here is a useful other thread on the topic from @meganranney

See also comments from @linseymarr

And also comments from @angie_rasmussen

And also see this from @ProfCharlesHaas

Note - the CDC has now released some additional information relating to their revised guidance - see story about this here cnn.com/2021/05/14/hea…

The MMWR report on this new data is here cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/7… - posted today (as an aside it would certainly have been better to have shared this with people before not after their announcement)

The study is certainly useful but does have some limitations - they list four in the paper

But there is a fifth I would like to know more about - the study was done between Jan and March 2021 in the US - and this covers the time when large transitions happened in the major variants circulating in the US

I could not find anything in the paper relating to variants ...

Also see this from the @nytimes

See this too - I agree with those who express concern about lack of data on transmission by those J & J vaccinated and also lack of data on variants and infection / transmission

In particular see quotes from @florian_krammer which are spot on

And fortunately Yolo County, where I live, is not following CDC yet Yolo County still requiring face masks for all residents dailydemocrat.com/2021/05/14/yol…

And New Jersey keeping mask mandates for indoors in place

And now, thankfully, even the @CDCgov is not endorsing the full recommendations from the @CDCgov - nytimes.com/2021/05/15/us/…

And here is @drsanjaygupta critiquing the CDC rollout of new guidance cnn.com/2021/05/16/med…

Also see this from @aetiology

@threadreaderapp unroll please

And now this from @Bob_Wachter