Watch: Fauci Justifies Children Wearing Masks Outside — ‘They Are More at Risk of Getting Infected’

During a Wednesday appearance on NBC’s “Today,” White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci discussed the new mask guidelines that allow vaccinated people to go outside without masks.

Host Savannah Guthrie asked Fauci when kids are going to be able to play without masks.

Fauci suggested that time would come once they are vaccinated. He cautioned that since children are unvaccinated and out in the community, “they are more at risk of getting infected.”

“It is going to be a situation — well, first of all, kids will ultimately wind up getting vaccinated, but you want to have some activity in that direction before they do. High school kids will likely get vaccinated as we get into the fall term, and children of any age will likely be vaccinated by the time we get to the end of the year. But let’s not talk about the end of the year. Let’s talk about the immediate or intermediate future. When children are out in the community, when you have 30,000, 40,000, 50,000 new infections per day, they are unvaccinated now because children can’t get vaccinated now. And for that reason, they are more at risk of getting infected because they are out in the community where there is a lot of infection. When the community level starts to go way down, the risks to everybody, including the children, is going to be dramatically diminished,” Fauci replied.

“But isn’t it a weird situation?” Guthrie followed up. “Because I’m not fully vaccinated yet. I can take off my mask and walk home. She can’t. Like, doesn’t that just point up that the CDC guidelines, there’s some kind of disconnect, if that’s the situation?”

“Well, yeah,” Fauci stated. “What you’re pointing out — what you’re referring to, Savannah is the top two not fully vaccinated, that people can go out without masks, if you walk, run, with members of your household, attend a small outdoor gathering, fully vaccinated with friends. Then after that, everything has a mask on it, as you’re showing correctly now on the screen. So, what you’re asking, if you are on the left-hand part and you see un-vaccinated people, walk outdoors with members of your household. And you’re asking now if your child is a member of your household, can you walk outdoors with your child without a mask? According to that chart, the answer is yes.”

“But the child can’t?” she wondered. “Not to beat it to death.”

Fauci responded, “Yes, yes.”

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