41 thoughts on “With Quiet Dignity Senator Kaine Responds to Ted Cruz’s CDC Nonsense.”

  1. Ho hum, Yet another out-of-context clip.

    Just Kaine’s snarky comments on Cruz’s prior remarks, with none of what Cruz actually had said, and no rebuttal from Cruz after. We don’t even know if Kaine is replying to anything Cruz actually said.

    I know what would be fun. Let’s have Trey Gowdy give us commentary on a statement by AOC without actually hearing what she said.

    You are getting really desperate as the Democratic Party slowly falls apart before us.

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    1. Even without addressing Cruz, what Kaine said was spot on. A reasonable, non-insulting speech that should be non-partisan…except for knee jerk responses.

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      1. If the CDC were trying to destroy the public trust it could not do a better job.

        They changed the mask guidance but withheld the studies on which they based the guidance (supposedly they will be made public latter today)

        The same goes for their estimates of the Delta variant’s infectiousness. ‘trust us, we’ll let others see the data later.’

        The CDC has to get ahead of this, justifying their guidance in real time, or even sharing their evidence with independent experts before making public statements.

        It’s almost as though they are trying to get their critics to commit themselves without the data to embarrass them.

        What they are doing instead is making themselves look like the fraud behind the curtain in the Wizard’s chamber.

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        1. It is not the CDC that is destroying public trust in their guidance. It is the shitheads like Trump, Cruz, and Carlson who are doing that. For some sort of perceived political advantage.

          Is it really so outrageous that the CDC sometimes changes its guidance in the face of a rapidly changing environment? For example, how could they have known in advance that so many fools would be risking their lives when vaccines are going begging?

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          1. It is entirely appropriate for the CDC to change guidance as new information becomes available.

            But it is not appropriate for them to withhold the reasons for that change from outside experts review.

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          2. “Withhold the reasons?”

            The reasons have not been withheld. They do not have to get your blessing before issuing life-saving guidance. GUIDANCE. They issue guidance and THEN explain why they did what they did. As they have now done. The main driver of the new guidance was the RECENT study of the Provincetown MA July 4th outbreak. July is not yet over. The spreader event occurred, the virus incubated, people got ill, others got tested, results got compiled, report issued, report evaluated and guidance updated ALL in the same month.

            You have dodged the question. What political gain is involved that would lead the CDC to reverse popular guidance? What is the nefarious motive that you people think is behind it?

            The politicalization of this is on the part of “conservatives” like you constantly trying to discredit the vaccines and the CDC for some political thumb in President Biden’s eye. Hillary Clinton got you people just about right.

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    2. “Ho hum, Yet another out-of-context clip.”

      The context was clear and explicit. Senator Cruz accused the CDC of changing its mask guidance not based on science but some sort of polical considerations. Cruz said : “The science hasn’t changed. The only thing that has changed is the politics.”

      Maybe you can explain what political benefit the CDC was going for by reversing itself on this touchy subject? Removing and easing recommended restrictions would be far more popular than injecting this unpleasant reality. Cruz’s accusations do not make any sense on any level. Kaine calling them ridiculous was entirely accurate.

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        1. “Context matters”

          Sure, and the context is that CDC acted very quickly on brand new information to update important guidance and followed up very quickly with the reasons for the revised guidance. That is SOP when the message is urgent.

          You keep dodging the real question – what political advantage could POSSIBLY have motivated CDC to rescind popular guidance? THAT is what they were accused of doing and it makes no sense in ANY CONTEXT. Pure politcal grandstanding by Cruz with no regard for the people he is killing.

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          1. The CDC stays relevant by prolonging fear.

            In this case, they delayed independent experts from examining the data until their narrative became ‘common knowledge.’ We all ‘know’ that the Delta Variant is as contagious as Chicken Pox and that vaccinated people can spread it just as much as unvaccinated people.

            Neither is remotely true.

            But by the time independent critiques are available minds are made up

            Reason

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  2. Sen. Kaine put the issue quite well with a soft, gentle yet firm rebuke of the Sen. from Texas.

    Yes it seems as if the CDC is switching policies daily, but the fact is that this pandemic is evolving, so science must also. All the BS about this pandemic being engineered to control people is so fraught with political bias that it is literally killing us.

    I still contend that the purposeful and politically obscene actions to undermine our health officials was the end result of politicizing masks from last year. And, of course, the endless harping that government is always wrong and QAnon along with its GOP surrogacy is the answer.

    If the virus were sensate beings, they are laughing their corona spiked asses off as they stomp through our people. Thank you Carlson, Ingraham, Greene, Cruz…

    IMHANEO

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      1. Thanks for the article. It was informative. But I found nothing in it that says vaccinated people wearing masks in crowded indoor spaces is a bad idea. It is clear that vaccinated people can become carriers of the Delta variant of the virus and that carriers can infect others. Quibbling about the degree of probabilities does not change those core facts. And, in case you do not understand, recommending that vaccinated people wear masks to protect others is NOT tyranny or government overreach.

        With that said, this “independent review” did not show that Senator Kaine was offering “bullshit.” It did not even address ANYTHING he said. Maybe you could listen again and share with us ONE statement in those brief comments that was “bullshit?”

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        1. The CDC Director’s allegations need to be fact checked by experience and that is what the REASON article does.

          Consider the simplistic assumption that because at some point vaccinated people might briefly have as high a viral load as unvaccinated that they are equally likely to transmit the virus. AS you often say, it sounds ‘truthy.’

          But it doesn’t survive in the real world where people practice medicine instead of reading papers. First, the unvaccinated person will maintain that high level for a week, while the vaccinated person’s level will drop off in 2 to 3 days. The unvaccinated person is hacking and coughing and sneezing for 2 weeks while the vaccinated person will be asymptomatic or sneeze a little for a day or two,

          Still think they are equal spreaders?

          And of course vaccinated people wearing masks to protect others is something we should do IF we think we are feeling ill or have been exposed recently.

          But not having to wear a mask is one of the strongest incentives for people to get vaccinated. Take that away and you’re telling the remaining hold outs that the vaccine doesn’t work and there is nothing to be gained by changing their minds.

          That is very counterproductive.

          And the BS from Kaine was his implication that Cruz was ignorant of, or dismissive of, “the science” when the CDC’s claims were unsupported and dubious.

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  3. I take it Kaine thinks the Delta variant makes it reasonable to go back to wearing masks, possibly even to lockdowns. I don’t agree.

    You can find any number of studies to support either side of this issue. This alone indicates that the CDC’s revised guidelines are based more on politics than science. Oddly, too, the research CDC relied on has not been made public. It is anyone’s guess how they reached the conclusions that underlie the new policy.

    The Delta variant appears to be spreading vigorously among the vaccinated, but not so vigorously among the unvaccinated with prior Covid-19 infection. This raises the (unproven) possibility that vaccinated populations now serve as a reservoir for Covid-19’s survival.

    In that case, the CDC will have lost all control over the pandemic. Better to do something, anything, than to do nothing. That is, better to politic than to science until a solution can be developed.

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        1. “ The Swiss Policy Research site has been criticized for spreading conspiracy theories including claims that QAnon was a psyop of the FBI.[4] and theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][5] German public broadcasterTagesschau calls SPR a propaganda tool.”

          Wikipedia

          But, phony or not, you did post a “study”, so there is that.

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          3. “Limitation: Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.”

            Seems a bit shaky to me.

            Plus the study is from April/May 2020. A bit old in the fast moving world of COVID research.

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          4. RE: “Seems a bit shaky to me.”

            The limitations are self-reported. That’s standard procedure.

            If you’d prefer something else, try this survey of the literature I posted here in the forum back in March of 2020:

            https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/

            I stand by my statement that studies can be found to support either side of the mask issue. Mr. Murphy’s challenge actually addresses a different assertion.

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          5. Again, old news from March, 2020. That was right about the same time that the president came to the conclusion that the pandemic needed to be dealt with and that it was a real problem. At least for a few weeks or so.

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        2. Read the challenge again . . .

          “Cite ONE study that finds mask wearing does not slow the spread of the virus.”

          It is widely recognized that mask wearing is to protect other people rather than oneself. In the early days of the pandemic you people attributed the relative success of Korea, for example, to their cultural acceptance of mask wearing. Now you want to claim masks do no good?

          From the study . . . “[We did] no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.”

          Since they did not assess the principle reason that masks are recommended, I find that you have failed to meet the challenge.

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          1. The Conclusion: “The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use. The data were compatible with lesser degrees of self-protection.”

            To the extent that infection rate is a measure of of transmission, I find the study meets the challenge.

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          2. What part of “among wearers” do you not get? The study only shows that masks do not significantly protect the wearers. That was already known and for obvious reasons – people wearing masks still must inhale.

            The authors explicitly stated . . . “[We did] no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.”

            If you cannot read and understand English as straight-forward as that there is very little point in arguing with your pre-conceived ideas.

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  4. One has to wonder to what extent the sudden fear porn over masks and variants is just intended as a distraction from the colossal screw up at the border.

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    1. “Fear porn”
      The CDC trying to convince people to get vaccinated and to wear masks? THAT “fear porn”?
      So, that is the political motive that you have been grasping for. Someone – President Biden, maybe – decided to take the damage of reversing popular CDC guidance to draw attention away from other failures? Not too ridiculous but right in the wheel house of the people of the conspiracy theory.

      “Colossal screw up at the border?”
      Sure there is renewed but not unprecedented migrant pressure at the Southern border. It started on Trump’s watch and has been caused in part by his policies. It is continuing now. It is being dealt with as efficiently and humanely as possible. It could be dealt with more efficiently if Trump Republicans would cooperate on needed and long overdue to rationalize our policies and pay for the resources needed. We NEED the labor that “illegal” migrants come here to provide. Our laws need to recognize that economic fact.

      https://www.wola.org/analysis/putting-border-crisis-narrative-into-context-2021/

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      1. I support more welcoming immigration, and particularly, guest worker provisions.

        But right now unvaccinated people are crossing the border by tens of thousands from areas with very high rates of infection and not being effectively quarantined before they are dispersed to all corners of the country.

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        1. All the more reason to vaccinate them before deportation. There might be some hair on fire about illegals getting the jab from the knee jerk crowd but it makes sense. We have more vaccine than people are willing to get. A curious problem for those dying in the Third World. And creating variants daily.

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          1. “Still think they are equal spreaders?”

            Nice straw man.

            The BS was on the part of Cruz. And now you. The science HAS changed. Kaine listed the new science that Cruz is ignoring when he attributes the revised CDC guidance to politics with no sensible idea of what tha even might mean. You keep dodging – what is the political gain to be found in reversing a popular stance? Ignoring the science to avoid political discomfort would be political. We had more than enough of that in the previous administration.

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          4. Actually, no it isn’t.

            Remember that they’re coming from areas with much higher infection rates than even the worst US states.

            But they’re coming here illegally and asking to stay anyway. Even 1 refusing vaccination is too many if they expect to be admitted. No vaccination, send them back.

            They do not have the presumptive right to be here that unvaccinated Americans do.

            (But they really shold get vaccinated)

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          5. “Those ICE picks up are offered vaccination, 30% refuse”

            That is almost exactly where we Americans fall. Only recently did we reach President Biden’s goal of getting 70% of eligible adults vaccinated. And Americans are not in the custody of a hostile agency whose offer of an inoculation would be far more frightening than an offer from Rite-Aid.

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          6. “Remember that they’re coming from areas with much higher infection rates than even the worst US states.”

            They are coming from Mexico even if they started walking to the north from somewhere else. By every statistic I can find Mexico is NOT suffering “much higher infection rates” than we are. Their most recent rolling seven day average of new infections per capita is FAR LESS than ours. So, where did you get the “fact” you are arguing from? It appears to be one of your “wrong assumptions.”

            Mexico
            Population 127,600,000
            Most recent seven day average of new infections 17,101

            United States
            Population 328,200,000
            Most recent seven day average of new infections 77,275

            Do the math.

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          7. Florida alone had a seven day average listed at Johns Hopkins for July 27 of over 15,000 new infections. And we are worried about Mexican border crossings.

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        2. Typical Trumpist tactic – demonizing immigrants.
          They have no more positivity for the virus than we do.

          https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-immigration-migrants-mexico-border/

          Leave it to you people to justify defiance of mask wearing and vaccination while hypocritically describing migrants as virus threats. There is FAR more danger created by the Texas yahoos who will not follow the science than presented by migrants who – by the way – are being deported at a record pace. And the governor leading the complaints about them is the one who will not let local governments set their own policies on mask wearing.

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          2. Anecdotes are easy evidence. Such an anecdote of an administrative error is not supportive of the way you people are exaggerating immigrants as a danger to our health. This slander is as old as the hills and has been directed at just about every immigrant community for about two centuries.

            If these people in Texas tested positive for the virus as reported then clearly they should be quarantined. Anybody taken into custody and held by the authorities should be tested. And quarantined if necessary. It is true of immigrants and Americans.

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