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The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Robert Redfield, claimed that the masks offer safer protection against the coronavirus than vaccines, at least for the immediate future.
“I could say that this mask is more likely to protect me against covid than when I take a vaccine,” Dr. Redfield said during his testimony Wednesday before a Senate subcommittee.
He noted that there is more research clearly showing that masks work to block the spread of infectious particles, while vaccines are still in testing and their true efficacy will not be entirely clear until large groups of people have been dosed.
Dr. Redfield’s comments were part of the same testimony in which he and other officials presented a plan to give all Americans free coronavirus vaccines, distributing them to the general public beginning in January.
CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said Wednesday that the masks offer more “ guaranteed ” protection against the coronavirus than potential vaccines, because there is more scientific proof that they work than injections not yet tested.
But the CDC director pushed back on the ‘playbook’ optimism and Trump himself, estimating that vaccines won’t be widely available to Americans until spring or summer of next year.
Trump continues to insist that a vaccine is only ‘weeks away’, while hinting at his hope that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will pass one before the Nov.3 election.
The CDC director’s apparent endorsement of masks and the sobering vision of vaccines was typical of his tense day before the Senate on Wednesday.
While trying to temper the expectations set by the ‘playbook’ for the distribution of coronavirus vaccines published by his agency in conjunction with other health agencies and the Department of Defense, Dr. Redfield also had to reject criticism.
The CDC’s game plan assumes that tens of millions of doses of a vaccine will be available to ship free to Americans, not just frontline workers, by January 2021.
In turn, that means approval of an injection by the end of next month.
Health experts, including Dr. Redfield, have said that is possible, but not likely.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, accused the CDC of being politically motivated to create a vaccine development and release schedule that is convenient for President Trump’s re-election campaign.
Dr. Redfield faced allegations that his agency had given in to pressure from the Trump administration, which is pushing for a vaccine to be ready by Election Day.
‘It’s not beyond anyone’s perspective that you’re deliberately lying [plans to have states start administering vaccines] two days before the election, ”Merkley said, asking Dr. Redfield who had asked him in the White House to do it.
When Redfield responded that ‘no one’ had, Merkley responded that he was’ influencing the election ‘, asking’ what happened to the scientific decisions that drive the decisions’ and said the unlikely date of the vaccine ‘undermines [the CDC’s] credibility.’
Dr. Redfield defended his agency, stating that the timeline was “independently developed by our experts in the field.”
But he also said that a vaccine would likely not be widely available until much later than the ‘playbook’ suggested.
He also tempered expectations about the efficacy of a potential vaccine and cautioned that in the grand scheme of things, the world really has little data on what protection vaccines will offer.
“Masks are the most powerful and important public health tool we have,” he said.
“We have clear scientific evidence that they work and are our best defense.”
For a vaccine, on the other hand, “the immunogenicity can be 70 percent, and if I don’t get an immune response, the vaccine may not protect me,” Dr. Redfield said.
The FDA has set the bar for a vaccine that it would consider approving with 50 percent efficacy.
But that means it can only prevent infection in half of the people who get the vaccine.
In early trials, the three main vaccine candidates, AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer, elicited some antibody production in trial participants.
What is unknown is how important an immune response must be to offer protection and how long that shield might last.
The masks are simpler and their effects are clearer. Research has suggested that wearing face masks reduces the risks of contracting COVID-19 by as much as 65 percent.
They are also believed to reduce the number of potentially infectious particles that a person can expel into the air by about a third.
