Robert Redfield told the Senate Appropriations Committee that wearing a mask could be more effective than a vaccine at keeping the pandemic at bay.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday twice contradicted his own CDC director — on mask-wearing and vaccine distribution — saying the country’s top public health official misspoke while testifying under oath before a congressional committee earlier in the day.
Robert Redfield told the Senate Appropriations Committee that wearing a mask could be more effective than a coronavirus vaccine at keeping the pandemic at bay. “If I don’t get an immune response [from a Covid-19] vaccine it’s not going to protect me. This face mask will,” he said. Redfield later tweeted a similar message — after the president insisted that his top public health official was mistaken and “confused.”
The exchange is only the latest example of the president publicly discrediting or pressuring his own appointees and government scientists at the major federal health agencies on the coronavirus pandemic response — on testing, treatments, a vaccine timeline, even the severity of the threat from the virus itself. It comes as Trump resumes holding large indoor campaign rallies and largely avoiding wearing a face mask. Redfield has said the president should embrace face coverings to set an example for the public, though Trump on Wednesday again questioned their effectiveness.
Trump at a White House briefing late Wednesday said Redfield was wrong and that he had called him to discuss it. “No, the mask is not as important as the vaccine,” Trump said. “He made a mistake.”