CDC Director Says Health Officials Need to Spend Time ‘Talking to Parents’ to Get Children Vaccinated

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on Tuesday said public health officials need to place a greater emphasis on speaking to parents and listening when it comes to their goal of vaccinating eligible children.

“On the topic of people who are not vaccinated, when you look at areas that vaccination is lagging, from boosters and adults to unvaccinated kids to adults who refuse to get vaccinated at all, where do you think public health and medical experts should be focusing their energy to make the most difference right now?” NPR’s Ari Shapiro asked Walensky.

“I think we need to listen,” she responded. “We need to talk to people and listen. We need to focus on our most frail and elderly populations, those who are who have underlying medical conditions, because those people are ones who may not yet be – who may be vaccinated and not yet boosted.”

Walensky expressed belief that it is “really critical in the context of omicron to get them boosted,” even though evidence seems to point to the fact that omicron is a milder illness than the delta strain.

“And then I think we need to spend some time talking to parents and to listen. You know, not every parent wants to have all the data at them,” she continued. “They want to sort of give you their concerns and then have you speak to their concerns, and that’s the hard work we’re doing every single day.”

The interview comes as public health officials push mass testing across the board. It also comes on the heels of U.S. health officials cutting down isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who contract the virus, bringing it from ten days to five.

“What we have learned during all this period of time is that early in the course of illness, in the one to two days prior to the onset of symptoms and in the two to three days after the prior onset of symptoms is really when the vast majority of transmission occurs” Walensky told NPR when asked about the change.

“So in that five-day window is really where most of that transmission is happening,” she added.