CDC Spokesman Says Director Didn’t Mean it When She Said Vaccinated People Couldn’t Get Covid-19: ‘The Evidence Isn’t Clear’

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A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman said agency Director Rochelle Walensky didn’t mean it when she said those vaccinated against Covid-19 were immune to the virus.

“Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during this interview,” the unnamed spokesman said in a statement to The New York Times. “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get Covid-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others. We are continuing to evaluate the evidence.”

Walensky made her comments in a Monday interview with with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. “We can kind of almost see the end,” Walensky said. “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.

“Yet, on the other side, I’m watching the cases tick up,” she added. “I’m watching us have increased numbers of hypertransmissible variants. I’m watching our travel numbers tick up, and the sense is, I have seen what it looks like to anticipate the oncoming surge. 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.”

Whether vaccinated individuals are capable of spreading the virus has been a subject of contention. A CDC study released Monday found that those who received both doses of vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna were 90 percent less likely to be infected with the virus. Of that figure, 10.7 percent were asymptomatic.