CDC Chief: Face mask is better than COVID-19 vaccine [Video]

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Testifying before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, Dr. Robert Redfield, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director, said that face mask gives more protection than a vaccine against COVID-19.
• The CDC chief also pointed out that the vaccine could have immunogenicity of 70 percent, suggesting that about one-third of people whom it will be injected with won’t get its benefits.
• During the hearing, Redfield emphasized that face masks “are the most important public health tool.”

During Wednesday’s congressional hearing, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert Redfield, pointing to the surgical mask he was wearing, said that simply covering your face is essentially better than a vaccine.

“This face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine,” Redfield said.

Redfield also noted that a vaccine could yield a 70 percent chance of immunogenicity, that would mean it could be ineffective to about 30 percent of people it will be administered to.

“If I don’t get an immune response, the vaccine’s not going to protect me. This face mask will.”

A recent manuscript about face masks from the New England Journal of Medicine stated that face masks could serve as an exposure therapy method where it could prepare the body to face the virus without making the person ill, given that they “can filter out some virus-containing droplets.”

“If this theory bears out, population-wide masking, with any type of mask that increases acceptability and adherence, might contribute to increasing the proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infections that are asymptomatic,” the article suggests.

Basically, what it means is that people who wear face masks would receive significantly lower viral participles versus people who don’t wear one.

It was not clear if Redfield was specifically referring to the article, although there are several studies that prove the effectiveness of face masks on mitigating the spread of the virus.

Redfield’s comments directly contradicted President Donald Trump’s remarks during a televised town hall on Tuesday, saying that “a lot of people think the masks are not good.”

Redfield has been having difficulties in setting the health guidelines particularly when it does not blend in with Trump’s belief. On the issue of face masks at least, he made his conviction clear in his House testimony on Wednesday.

“These face masks are the most important public health tool we have,” Redfield said. 

His remarks were widely approved and shared on social media.

Redfield was with assistant health secretaries Dr. Brett Giroir and Dr. Robert Kadlec during the Wednesday Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

According to Redfield, the resumption of life and the effective execution of the COVID-19 vaccine won’t happen until next year.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, had already taken away about 200,000 lives in the US. 

Source: AOL.com