Sen. Tom Cotton: Politicized CDC Mask Guidance Unaligned with Reality

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “politicized recommendations” regarding masks and distancing in relation to the coronavirus are “not keeping up with the reality on the ground,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow, author of Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption.

Cotton noted that President Joe Biden’s ongoing public displays of mask-wearing — which are mirrored by his administration and the broader Democrat Party — signals the impression of permanent crisis despite growing knowledge of the coronavirus and the development of vaccines against the pathogen.

“It’s a terrible, terrible communication strategy,” he said. “For any person who has any reason to be hesitant about getting the vaccine, it’s that kind of message of seeing Joe Biden wearing a mask, walking across the South Lawn, holding hands with his wife with no one else in even remote proximity to him —  that says, ‘Why do we go to all this trouble? Why did we spend those billions of dollars last year on Operation Warp Speed. Why do we have our best scientists [and] medical researchers working around the clock to develop these vaccines in record-breaking time?”

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In an interview aired Friday, Biden said wearing a mask while vaccinated is “a small precaution to take that has a profound impact.” The president described mask-wearing a a “patriotic responsibility, for God’s sake.”

Cotton remarked, “The policies of this administration — and especially the politicized recommendations of the CDC — are simply not keeping up with the reality on the ground. We should be out getting back to normal much faster than we are.”

On Tuesday, the CDC issued a color-coded chart entitled, “Choosing Safer Activities,” advising Americans to wear masks — even after vaccinations — in most of its listed social circumstances.

Breitbart News reported, “The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) “Safer Activities” chart, which categorizes high-risk and low-risk activities for unvaccinated and vaccinated people, has fully vaccinated individuals wearing a mask for most activities, giving them little-to-no edge over the unvaccinated population in terms of masking.”

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) told Breitbart News on Thursday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) imposed a strict capacity limit on the House of Representatives for Biden’s address to emphasize the optics of the pandemic. Pelosi and Vice President Kamala Harris — who both received  vaccines against the coronavirus — wore marks during the event.

Marshall, a physician, stated, “There is no scientific support to wear a mask after you’ve had the vaccine or had the virus itself.”

Last week, Biden wore a mask during a virtual “climate summit” with world leaders, even though it was virtual. He was the only head of state to do so.