Biden Officials Reportedly Frustrated With CDC for Withholding Information From Them: ‘Where the Hell are the Data?’

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Officials in the Biden administration are reportedly becoming frustrated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for withholding data on the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.

The agency published a study on Friday that looked at the efficacy of the vaccines through April — before Covid-19’s delta variant became the dominant strain in the United States. Imperial College London released a study the same week that found vaccines had become less effective against symptomatic infections of the delta variant, while Public Health England published a study that found vaccinated patients with the delta variant may be as contagious as their unvaccinated counterparts.

“That’s where the tension is, like ‘Where the hell are the data?'” a source familiar with the situation said in a comment to Axios.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has faced criticism from her colleagues and from other officials in the Biden administration after numerous missteps since she began leading the agency. When Walensky suggested in February that schools could “safely reopen” if teachers were fully vaccinated, White House press secretary Jen Psaki contradicted her the same day, telling reporters she made the comments in a “personal capacity” rather than on the CDC’s behalf. And in March, when Walensky said in an interview that CDC data indicated vaccinated people “do not carry the virus” and “don’t get sick,” a spokesman for the agency contradicted her the next month, saying “the evidence isn’t clear.”

By the end of July, the agency had changed its guidance to conform with the spokesman’s statement, saying fully vaccinated people should continue to “wear masks in public, indoor settings.”