Mehdi Hasan Criticizes the CDC for ‘Major Mess-Up’ on Mask Messaging

MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan criticized the CDC’s “major mess-up” on mask-wearing in an interview Wednesday night with former Biden administration covid advisor Andy Slavitt.

After the Centers for Disease Control announced its revised mask mandates for vaccinated people on Tuesday, Hasan tweeted, “It was a monumental mistake by the CDC to have dropped masking in May and some of us said so at the time. This was predicted and predictable.”

It was a monumental mistake by the CDC to have dropped masking in May and some of us said so at the time. This was predicted and predictable. https://t.co/qemDY4KNQm

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) July 27, 2021

On Hasan’s Peacock program Wednesday, Slavitt defended the CDC decision in the context of the Delta variant causing rises in covid cases across the country.

However, Hasan asked, “Does there need to be better messaging?”

“We’re in a bit of a fog of war,” Slavitt said. “We all thought a few months ago that this thing was headed in one direction, now it’s headed in another.”

He added that the CDC will get criticized either way, for being too slow or too fast on this decision.

Hasan argued that the problem goes back to the CDC’s May announcement saying vaccinated people could shed their masks:

I think the CDC merits some criticism here. This does seem to me like another major mess-up from the CDC. Last year, you remember well, the start of the pandemic, they said don’t wear masks when we know we should’ve been wearing masks back then. Then in May of this year they said no need to wear masks indoors anymore if you’re fully vaccinated, even as Delta was starting to rise here in the US. Cases have started going up. And now they’re back to, ‘Yeah, wear masks in high-transmission areas, even if you’re vaccinated because of Delta.’ And I get the argument that the science changes and you look at new studies. But come on, we knew in May from the UK — we knew from the UK that Delta was highly contagious, and the CDC should never have made that decision in May. And a lot of epidemiologists said so at the time.

Slavitt responded, “Let’s say you’re right. Would you prefer that they sat here today and didn’t make a change back? All they can do is the best they’re able to do at the time.”

He defended the CDC by emphasizing they have to “live with the consequences” of their decisions.

“I’m a journalist. It’s our job to hold people to account,” Hasan said. “And they do seem to have messed up.”

You can watch above, via Peacock.