<Anchor>
US health officials last week issued a quarantine guide saying that people who get vaccinated do not need to wear masks. However, after this announcement, many reactions are confused as to whether or not it is really necessary to use it, but some point out that communication between the White House and the US health authorities was insufficient.
This is Kim Jong-won's correspondent from New York.
<Reporter> At a
US Senate hearing on the 11th of last week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky Center for Disease Control and Prevention emphasizes the need to continue wearing masks.
[Rochelle Wallensky/Chief Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Current health guidelines must be maintained. Because it prevents the virus from spreading. Wearing a mask, hygiene, hand washing and social distancing must be maintained.]
But two days later, CDC suddenly releases a new quarantine guidelines.
[Rochelle Wallensky/Chief Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Anyone who has received both vaccines can take off their masks anywhere indoors or outdoors, whether crowded or small.]
Only two days without prior notice. Amidst chaos amid the mask guidelines that have changed 180 degrees in the first place, today (17th) the Washington Post pointed out that communication between the White House and the CDC was lacking in an article titled'I made the right decision and dealt with it wrong.
Unlike Trump, who put political pressure on the CDC in the incident, the Biden administration's distance from CDC policy means that important things, such as the new mask guidelines, were delivered only to the president on the same day.
However, when the atmosphere in the U.S. was messed up due to the oil pipeline hacking incident and inflation issues, there is a controversy over whether the suddenly announced guidelines were intended.
Wallensky said all decisions were based on science, and belatedly evolved the controversy, but confusion is likely to continue for the time being.