Psaki Points Finger at the Unvaccinated

BUCK: The White House press conference which has been going on. Not a lot of very clear messaging from this White House on, “Wait a second, the CDC going back on things? Where’s this data?” One thing we haven’t seen is a huge increase in hospitalizations and deaths the way that we had in the past. So now they’re treating cases — you brought up Covid Zero before.

They’re treating cases like that’s what we need to be willing to do anything to eliminate. But that doesn’t really make any sense. I mean, it can’t be all these different things. It can’t be you’re protected but the vaccine doesn’t work that well so you have to mask but if you mask it will protect you. It’s just contradictory. It’s a contradictory mess at this point.

CLAY: Are you suggesting that the CDC doesn’t make logical sense, Buck Sexton?

BUCK: I know. I’ve hated the CDC now for 18 months.

CLAY: Join the club.

BUCK: Even in the zombie movies where the CDC is supposed to always save everybody, I’m thinking, “I don’t know. Maybe the zombies are onto something.”

CLAY: This is the biggest failure of American public policy in most of our lives, and Jen Psaki’s not making any more sense.

BUCK: She said this when asked about it.

PETER DOOCY: Then why do vaccinated people need to put the masks back on?

PSAKI: Well, Peter, first of all, I would say again, go back to this chart, which I will handily point to again. If you were vaccinated, if you were vaccinated, your li — it can save your life. And I think the clear data shows, um, that this pandemic is killing, it’s hospitalizing, is making people very sick who are not vaccinated. That could still continue to be the case, uh, regardless of what the mask guidance looks like.

PETER DOOCY: If vaccines work, which this sign says that they do, then why do people who have the vaccine need to now wear masks the same as people who have not had it?

PSAKI: Because the public health, uh (sputters) leaders in our administration have made the determination based on data that that is a way to make sure they’re protected, their loved ones are protected, uhhh, and that’s an extra step given the transmissibility of the virus.

BUCK: “Because we say so, peasant!” That’s what the White House is really saying, Clay. “It’s because we told you to because we don’t have a better answer.”

CLAY: That question illuminates what is going to be the story over the next couple of months, which is these vaccines are much more akin to flu shots than they are to smallpox vaccines or measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines. I just to want keep reiterating this because what the White House sold us on was if everybody got the vaccine, this would effectively end covid, correct? That’s what they sold us. And as every month is passing, these vaccines are looking more and more like a prophylactic, not a cure.

BUCK: Or a therapeutic.

CLAY: Therapeutic. Not even necessarily a full-on vaccine. Again, that’s what the data is showing, and the White House is telling you that they have access to that data because they’re falling back on the mask requirement, because now they’re saying, “Hey, the reason why covid is still existing and why cases are going up is because of the unvaccinated and because people are not wearing their masks.”

That’s the storyline that they are going to set. But, Buck, we’re approaching 70% of people 18 and over who have received at least one dose of this vaccine. And then if you combine that with all the people who have had natural immunity like you and I, that’s gotta be 85% of adults 18 and up in the country, doesn’t it? That doesn’t seem rational.

BUCK: This is why what they’re really doing is pushing for covid-19 zero, and this isn’t surprising when you understand the mentality from the very beginning here, it was considered — in the early stages of the pandemic — reckless to say, “Oh, my gosh! We’re just gonna have all this stuff happening until we get a vaccine and we’re gonna lockdown until we have vaccine?” and then we did pursue a policy that was something along those lines.

It was constant mitigation until vaccination. We said, “If you’re gonna go for perfection then the logical end of this would be you continue it even after vaccination,” because no one thought you were gonna get this fully eliminated, and that’s where we are. That’s what we’re seeing.

People refuse to accept that this virus is out there and will continue to be out there, and they have created this blame game. Why do they care so much, Clay? There’s so many questions here that never get answers. We brought up natural immunity. If it works so well, if the vaccine works so well, then isn’t it reasonable to say, “Stop whining! If you’re vaccinated, shut up! I don’t want to hear it anymore. Don’t tell everybody they have to mask, don’t tell everyone else what they have to do. You’re good. You’re as protected as you can reasonably be.” But that’s not good enough; they’re not willing to accept that.

CLAY: The difference would be, “Hey, if you eat healthy, you’re not running up to every obese person saying, ‘Oh, my God. How in the world did you decide to get ice cream today?'” In fact, that would be “fat shaming,” and that’s unacceptable, right? We tell individuals to take care of their own individual health decisions.

And if you are vaccinated and the vaccine works as well as they have told us the vaccine works, then you can worry about your family, your surroundings, everyone that is near and dear to you, and you wouldn’t have to be obsessed with the choices that anybody else is making. But that’s not where we are and that question, I think, perfectly elucidates the internal conflict here between saying, “Get vaccinated. It works.

“But also, oh, by the way, you need to wear masks indoors and all kids need to wear masks,” and, again, I hate to keep belaboring the point, but it is significant. Just listen to Buck and I and what we’re telling you now and then think a month from now what the conversation is gonna sound like, ’cause I think you probably would agree with me, Buck. We’re at least a month ahead of where the data is compared to what the White House is saying right now.

BUCK: And there’s going to be a push for preemptive mitigation measures, not based on the actual numbers of infections or hospitalizations, but on the desire of this Biden administration to pose as the great heroes of the pandemic — the responsible ones, so to speak.

And so that means we have to get ahead of it with mitigation, social distancing, the whole mantra — all the covid theater that we’ve been subjected to in the past — even with right now the numbers for deaths nationwide are very, very low. It’s over 90% down from where it was, and yet they still act like this is a constant crisis.