CNN fed up with ‘unreasonable, unrealistic’ CDC guidance seeking to cancel school sports, band

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You know things are going badly for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) when CNN airs its frustration with their ridiculous guidelines that now are calling for the cancelation of football, band, wrestling, and other activities to slow the spread of COVID.

In another sage piece of guidance, the CDC is unbelievably telling people who’ve recovered from COVID that they can leave their homes after five days but for the next five days they should avoid being around more than 80% of the population. Aside from being insane, that is patently impossible to do.

Dr. William Schaffner, who is an adviser to the CDC and an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, bluntly told CNN that it was “unlikely, unreasonable, and unrealistic” to believe for one second that Americans would comply with the agency’s suggestions.

“Making public health recommendations — they are not a platonic ideal,” Schaffner stated. “They have to work in the real world.”

He also questioned the practicality of avoiding 80% of the people around you.

“How do you know if people have heart conditions or diabetes? How are you supposed to figure that out? Can you recognize everyone who is pregnant or has sickle cell or are former smokers?” he asked, referring to some of the conditions on the CDC’s list of whom to avoid.

“As we say in Tennessee, that dog won’t hunt,” Schaffner quipped alluding to the guidelines.

CNN correctly called the advice “out-of-touch” and noted it has become the norm for the CDC. “The agency needs to do better, said current and former health officials and physicians who have worked with the CDC on health guidance,” the leftist media outlet reported.

The media outlet then went on to question CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky over the edicts from the CDC.

Walensky was quick to justify the CDC’s guidelines claiming that they “prioritized academics over athletics because of the increased risks involved in some extracurricular sports.”

“When followed, our school guidance has been incredibly effective. In the fall, 99 percent of schools were able to remain open during the intense delta wave of COVID,” she asserted.

CNN wasn’t buying it this time and pointed out that CDC scientists were “sometimes stuck in a bubble.”

“You’ve got nerds — literally science nerds — who are writing these things,” charged Dr. Otis Brawley, who worked with the CDC on cancer guidance while he was the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society from 2007 to 2018, according to CNN.

The CDC’s guidelines urge schools to “cancel or hold high-risk sports and extra-curricular activities virtually” whenever a community experiences a “high” COVID transmission rate.

Walensky said people should “avoid your family members or others who might be immunocompromised, avoid visiting grandma or a nursing home.”

If Walensky is intent on improving the messaging from the CDC, she just missed the mark by a country mile. The agency has been blasted incessantly for confusing and unnecessary restrictions during the pandemic and it’s getting worse.

On Monday during an interview on Fox News, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said we needed “someone who is compassionate, who is consistent, and where the messaging is clear” from the CDC, insinuating that Walensky should get the boot and be replaced by someone like Dr. Ashish Jha. He added, “There may be others. But I do think we need clearer, better communication.”

(Video Credit: Fox News | The Story)

Paul Imhoff, who is the president of The School Superintendents Association, told CNN that while schools have gone to great lengths to control the spread of COVID, he doesn’t know of any schools that have canceled activities such as football, band, or choir. Those activities, he said, are “important to students’ mental health.”

“As schools are making decisions about having choir and band and wrestling, it’s about making sure our kids are healthy in every way. I think everyone’s doing their best to take care of the whole child,” Imhoff told CNN.

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