Category: Rochelle Walensky

CDC Director Avoids Naming Specific Benchmarks for Changing Mask Guidance

Public health officials are still not offering specific benchmarks that would trigger the easing of recommendations related to COVID-19. At a White House COVID update on Feb. 9, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said there will “come a time when we move from a phase of crisis to a point…


CDC Director: Schools Should Still Require Masks

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Feb. 8 that students and faculty in schools should still be required to wear masks. “We continue to endorse universal masking in schools,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky told Reuters. “We have and continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission—that is essentially…


COVID-19 Cases, Hospitalizations Continue to Drop in US: CDC

COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are continuing to drop in the United States, U.S. health officials said Wednesday, though deaths attributed to the disease have been rising. The seven-day daily average of cases is around 692,400 cases, down about 6 percent from the previous week, Dr. Rochelle Walensky told reporters in a virtual briefing. The seven-day…


CDC Plans to ‘Pivot the Language’ on Vaccination: Walensky

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said that her agency is looking to change the language regarding COVID-19 vaccines. When asked about why the health agency is not changing the definition to include whether one is fully vaccinated with a booster dose or not, Walensky told reporters the CDC is working to…


‘Just About Everybody’ Will Get COVID-19: Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top health officials said this week that virtually all Americans will get COVID-19 from the Omicron virus variant, a shift in outlook from earlier in the pandemic. “I think in many respects, Omicron, with its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of efficiency of transmissibility, will ultimately find just about everybody,” Fauci, President…


Guilty Conscience? CDC’s Walensky Lets the COVID Cat Out of the Bag

Commentary Was it a guilty conscience that prompted CDC director Rochelle Walensky to tell the world on Good Morning America Jan. 7 that 75 percent of COVID-19 deaths occurred among those with four or more comorbidities. If it wasn’t, it should have been. Four or more? What would the percentage have been for those with…


US Hasn’t Seen Omicron Peak, but Cases Could Drop Quickly: Walensky

The peak of cases during the current Omicron-driven COVID-19 wave has not yet arrived, but cases could drop quickly once it does, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. “We are still seeing those numbers rising,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on NBC’s “Today” show. According to federal data, the United…


Live Q&A: Fauci Suggests Negative COVID-19 Tests to Leave Quarantine, CDC Says That May Take 12 Weeks

Anthony Fauci, the White House pandemic advisor, told ABC News on Sunday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now evaluating a recent rule revision that allows people who tested positive to leave if they haven’t received a negative COVID-19 test. This comes after the CDC shortened isolation time from 10 days…


CDC Director: New COVID-19 Rule Based on What Agency ‘Thought People Would Be Able to Tolerate’

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky explained that the recent decision to shorten the isolation period for asymptomatic COVID-19 cases was based on what the federal government “thought people would be able to tolerate.” The latest CDC guidelines were released this week, shortening the 10-day isolation period to five days for…


Walensky: PCR Tests Can Remain Positive up to 12 Weeks

One reason for not recommending officials require COVID-19 testing at the end of the revised shortened isolation period is because polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests can stay positive for up to three months after one contracts the illness, according to the top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official. The CDC cut its recommendations this…