One day after top teacher’s union official Randi Weingarten testified to a House Oversight Subcommittee about school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, Republicans are demanding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provide the studies that it relied upon to justify its COVID-19 guidelines.
Under director Rochelle Walensky, the CDC released guidance in February 2021 asserting that schools could reopen if students and teachers wore masks and maintained social distancing. The guidelines did not say that teachers had to be vaccinated ahead of reopening, but recommended that they be considered high priority to receive the vaccine. Weingarten testified that President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team reached out to the American Federation of Teachers to discuss reopening guidelines, and AFT and another union viewed the guidelines ahead of their public release.
“The CDC has yet to release any of the so-called data the agency used in its decision making. In fact, an internal CDC review last year found that it ‘takes too long for CDC to publish its data and science for decision making’ and that you are ‘committed to sharing scientific findings and data faster, than at the typical speed for academic publication,'” Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna wrote Thursday in a letter to Walensky.
Fellow signatories include Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and Arizona Rep. Eli Crane.
Read the letter here:
4.27.23 Letter to CDC Director Regarding Contradicting Pandemic Guidance by Michael Ginsberg on Scribd
The letter notes the CDC’s abrupt shift in masking guidance. The agency announced in May 2021 that fully-vaccinated adults would no longer be ordered to mask indoors, but reversed course two months later. The CDC finally stopped recommending masking for unvaccinated individuals in August 2022. (RELATED: Fauci Admits CDC Guidelines For Kids To Wear Masks Outdoors In 90-Degree Weather May Not Be ‘Sensible’)
“It’s beyond time that the American people receive answers for the confusing and contradictory guidance the CDC forced them to abide by – guidance that more often than not cost them their jobs, mental and physical health, and way of life. The CDC must provide a full explanation as to why this happened to ensure it never takes place again,” Luna said in a statement to the Daily Caller.