CNN host John Berman asked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walensky “why the hell” vaccinated Americans have to “pay the price” for the unvaccinated and wear masks, during Wednesday’s broadcast of “New Day.”
“With prior variants, when people had these rare breakthrough infections, we didn’t see the capacity of them to spread the virus to others,” Walensky explained. “But with the Delta variant, we now see in our outbreak investigations that have been occurring over the last couple of weeks, in those outbreak investigations, we have been seeing that if you happen to have one of those breakthrough infections, that you can actually now pass it to somebody else.”
Walensky claimed that “new science” prompted the updated recommendations and that it was something that “weighed heavily” because the CDC was aware that Americans didn’t want to wear masks again. She did acknowledge that the “vast majority” of transmission is coming from unvaccinated people. (RELATED: Fauci Says The CDC ‘Hasn’t Really Flip-Flopped At All’ On Masks)
Berman pointed out a CDC brief that showed vaccinated people rarely transmit the virus and asked if that science was no longer applicable.
“You can understand the frustration in those of us who are vaccinated saying, ‘Why the hell do I have to pay the price for this?'” Berman asked.
Walensky claimed that the new guidance was put in place because if vaccinated people are in an area with a higher level of COVID infections, there is a “reasonably high chance, if nobody is wearing a mask, to interact with people who may be infectious.”
Walensky added that even though breakthrough infections are rare, the intention was to prevent vaccinated people from spreading the virus to others.
Former CDC Director Tom Frieden recently claimed that the U.S. could daily case numbers for the Delta variant rise to 200,000. According to Reuters, the Delta variant represents about 83% of new cases, with 97% of severe cases occurring among unvaccinated Americans.