The COVID restrictions from the Biden administration have become so onerous and illogical that even left-wing media outlets have begun to take notice. At the top of her 2:00 p.m. ET hour show on Tuesday, MSNBC anchor Katy Tur read from a New York magazine article openly mocking “irrational” Centers for Disease Control rules demanding children wear masks at all times outdoors while attending summer camp.
“Then there is the continued confusion over CDC guidance about masks,” Tur told viewers before citing the magazine article:
The CDC’s newly released guidance for summer camps is notable for its rigidity and strictness. Masks must be worn at all times, even outdoors, by everyone, including vaccinated adults and children as young as two years old. The exceptions are for eating and swimming. (The guidance helpfully notes that if a person is having trouble breathing or unconscious, no masks needs to be worn.)
The host chuckled as she wondered: “Folks, where do I begin on that?”
In the piece, entitled, Experts: CDC’s Summer-Camp Rules Are ‘Cruel’ and ‘Irrational,’ New York magazine writer David Zweig explained: “The notion that children should wear masks outdoors all day in the heat of July, or that they can’t play any sport that involves physical contact, or put an arm around a friend strikes many experts in infectious diseases, pediatrics, epidemiology, and psychiatry as impractical, of dubious benefit, and punishing in its effects on children.”
He turned to a series of leading epidemiologists and immunologists with expertise in pediatric medicine:
The combination of masking and social distancing of children outdoors, said Dimitri Christakis, an epidemiologist and the editor-in-chief of JAMA Pediatrics, the leading journal for pediatric medicine, “is unfairly draconian”....Mark Gorelik, a pediatric immunologist at Columbia University and an expert on MIS-C, the rare COVID-19-related inflammatory syndrome, said, “We know that the risk of outdoor infection is very low. We know risks of children becoming seriously ill or even ill at all is vanishingly small....the CDC’s recommendations cross the line into excess and are, frankly, senseless. Children cannot be running around outside in 90-degree weather wearing a mask. Period.”
Back on MSNBC, Tur observed to former Obama administration HHS pandemic coordinator Dr. Mario Ramirez: “...one of the other things that struck me today, and is striking a lot of parents, is the rigidity of the guidance from the CDC for summer camps. Everybody, masked outdoors in the middle of July, even if you’re vaccinated. It seems untenable, unworkable.”
Ramirez admitted “it is difficult,” but still tried to defend the agency’s excessive regulations: “I promise that CDC officials have been evaluating these guidelines for weeks and trying to do the right thing and protect the public health.”
When even routine Biden apologists like Tur are questioning the COVID guidance coming from the administration, it tells you how draconian the government rules have become.
Her coverage of the controversy was brought to viewers by DirectTV and The Farmer’s Dog.
Here is a transcript of her May 4 remarks:
2:01 PM ET
(...)
KATY TUR: Then there is the continued confusion over CDC guidance about masks. I did mention summer camps a moment ago, and there’s this from New York Magazine: “The CDC’s newly released guidance for summer camps is notable for its rigidity and strictness. Masks must be worn at all times, even outdoors, by everyone, including vaccinated adults and children as young as two years old. The exceptions are for eating and swimming. (The guidance helpfully notes that if a person is having trouble breathing or unconscious, no masks needs to be worn.)” Folks, where do I begin on that?
(...)
2:08 PM ET
TUR: Dr. Ramirez, one of the other things that struck me today, and is striking a lot of parents, is the rigidity of the guidance from the CDC for summer camps. Everybody, masked outdoors in the middle of July, even if you’re vaccinated. It seems untenable, unworkable.
DR. MARIO RAMIREZ [FMR. HHS PANDEMIC & EMERGING THREATS COORD.]: Yeah, it is difficult, Katy. You know, and it reminds me of what the situation was like when I was working at HHS during the ebola outbreak, and one of the things that I, you know, am continually reminded by was just how hard it is to make public health guidelines that keep up with the science on the ground, right? And so I promise that CDC officials have been evaluating these guidelines for weeks and trying to do the right thing and protect the public health. And at the same time, we’re seeing changes in, you know, the spread of the disease on the ground and it’s very hard to keep up with that.
And so, you know, I think CDC is doing their best to keep up with, you know, what we recognize as disease outbreak and they’re continuing to update those guidelines. But so often it’s not quite fast enough with what the public wants to see. You know, I think as an organization, CDC, you know, has been maligned through a lot of this pandemic, but I know there are hard working people there who are trying to do the absolute best they can to keep the public safe, and I think they’re going to update these guidelines in time, we just have to be patient with them.
(...)
