US Surgeon General defends CDC mask change, blames tech companies for COVID deaths

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WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) – US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has stuck to federal guidelines that people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no longer need to wear masks, while accusing media companies social media to fuel misinformation about vaccines.

Murthy told CNN’s “State of the Union” that allowing those vaccinated to forgo masks also gives communities the flexibility to revert to mask mandates based on new infections and vaccination rates, such as Los Angeles https://www.reuters.com/world/us / mask-mandate-returns-los-angeles-coronavirus-cases-rise-2021-07-15 did.

Nationally, new cases of COVID-19 in the United States increased 70% this week from the previous seven days to an average of 30,000 new infections per day, fueled by the Delta variant. Deaths increased 26% week-over-week to an average of 250 lives lost per day, mostly in unvaccinated patients. (Graph of cases and deaths worldwide) https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi

Murthy said social media companies fueled false accounts about the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, echoing comments by President Joe Biden that social media companies are “killing people.” https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/white-house-says-facebooks-steps-stop-vaccine-misinformation-are-inadequate-2021-07-16

“These tech companies have taken positive steps,” Murthy said. “But what I also told them in public and in private is that it is not enough.”

Facebook defended itself against Biden’s claim in an article https://bit.ly/3xSyRDV on Saturday, saying he was promoting authoritative vaccine news and aggressively acting against health misinformation about his platforms.

Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar told CNN’s “State of the Union” she was looking for ways to hold social enterprises legally accountable for vaccine misinformation and suggested some may even need to be dismantled.

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“I’m a fan of using antitrust so that we can get real competition against the dominant platforms,” Klobuchar said.

Ken McClure, the mayor of Springfield, Missouri, blamed misinformation as part of the driving force behind low vaccination rates in his community which has seen a huge spike in COVID-19 cases.

“I think we’re seeing a lot of things happening on social media,” McClure told CBS’s “Face the Nation”. “I think we as a society and certainly in our community are hurt by it.”

(Reporting by Joel Schectman and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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