Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky appeared Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” where she unveiled new CDC data suggesting “vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick.”
“I just want to note that I share this optimism,” Walensky said in response to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow‘s comment on improving vaccination pace. Walensky stated that both the clinical trials and the “real world data” corroborate the effectiveness of vaccines, and that an impressive 93 million people have already received their first dose.
“We’re vaccinating so very fast, our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick, and that it’s not just in the clinical trials but it’s also in real world data,” she said to Maddow.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky: “Our data from the CDC today suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus.” pic.twitter.com/9W1SHecSEm
— The Recount (@therecount) March 30, 2021
During a press briefing earlier the same day, however, Walensky went off the script to express her fears over “impending doom.”
“I’m going to pause here, I’m going to lose the script,” Walensky said. “And I’m going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom.”
“I know what it’s like as a physician to stand in that patient room gowned, gloved, masked, shielded, and to be the last person to touch someone else’s loved one because they’re not going to be there,” she said.
“And yet on the other side, I’m watching the cases tick up. I’m watching us have increased numbers of hyper-transmissible variants. I’m watching our travel numbers tick up,” Walensky told Maddow.
“And what I really would hate to have happen is to have another oncoming surge just as we’re reaching towards getting so many more people vaccinated,” she continued.