Johns Hopkins professor rips CDC for ‘absurdly restrictive’ guidelines for vaccinated people: Agency is ‘paralyzed by fear’

Dr. Marty Makary is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, so he knows a thing or two when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus.

And he is none too impressed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest recommendation for Americans who get the vaccine. He made his disdain for the agency’s latest “absurdly restrictive” guidelines clear in a Wednesday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, “Covid Prescription: Get the Vaccine, Wait a Month, Return to Normal,” in which he noted that though the CDC claims to be “following the science,” the truth is “its advice suggests it’s still paralyzed by fear.”

In the wake of the CDC’s announcement that it’s now safe for fully vaccinated people to mingle indoors with some other people without masks or social distancing — a move CNN described as the agency “giving limited freedoms” to people — but not to travel, Makary stated that this is just another instance of the CDC being late or wrong when it comes to COVID-19. Which fits a pattern, the doctor said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lost a lot of credibility during the Covid-19 pandemic by being late or wrong on testing, masks, vaccine allocation and school reopening. Staying consistent with that pattern, this week—three months after the vaccine rollout began—the CDC finally started telling vaccinated people that they can have normal interactions with other vaccinated people—but only in highly limited circumstances. Given the impressive effectiveness of the vaccine, that should have been immediately obvious by applying scientific inference and common sense.

Parts of the new guidelines are absurdly restrictive. For example, the CDC didn’t withdraw its advice to avoid air travel after vaccination. A year of prevaccine experience has demonstrated that airplanes aren’t a source of spread. A study conducted for the defense department found that commercial planes have HEPA filtration and airflow that exceed the standards of a hospital operating room.

Makary added that instead of running scared from encouraging a return to normal, the agency should take a look at the available data, including that vaccination reduces transmission 89% to 94% and almost totally prevents hospitalization and death, according to a study from Israel.

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