National Institutes of Health director Dr. Francis Collins said Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day” that parents should wear masks in their homes to protect children under 12 who can not yet get vaccinated.
Collins said, “It’s clear that this variant is capable of causing serious injury in children. You have heard those stories coming out of Louisiana pediatric ICUs where there are kids as young as a few months old who are sick from this. That is rare, certainly younger people are less likely to fall ill, but anyone that tried to tell you ‘Ah, you don’t have worry about it if you’re a young, healthy person,’ there’s many counterexamples all around us now.”
He continued, “Which means recommendations of mask-wearing in schools and at home. Parents of unvaccinated kids should be thoughtful about this, and the recommendation is to wear masks there as well. I know that’s uncomfortable, I know it seems weird, but it is the best way to protect your kids.”
Co-host John Berman said, “Before, the big concern was that kids could get it, pass it to others, but by and large, they weren’t becoming ill in great numbers, in any kind of numbers that were causing deep concern. Now you’re saying they can get sick enough that this is a worry.”
Collins said, “It’s sick enough it can be a worry. It frankly was before, and perhaps it was underemphasized. In part now because older people who are vaccinated are not so much filling up hospitals. The average age has dropped significantly. So now we see perhaps in this spectrum of illness more emphasis on younger people including kids.”
UPDATE: Collins acknowledged he “garbled” his messaging during his appearance on CNN
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