Report: CDC Tightened Mask Guidelines After Threats from Teachers’ Union

The Biden administration tightened its masking guidance after one of the country’s most powerful teachers’ unions — the National Education Association (NEA) — threatened White House officials with publicly releasing harsh criticism of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to internal emails obtained by Fox News.

On May 13, the CDC announced that fully vaccinated Americans could stop wearing masks indoors and outside. One day later, White House Director of Labor Engagement Erika Dinkel-Smith wrote in an email she stopped the NEA from releasing a critical statement that had called for immediate clarification.

“Would you know when Dr. Wolensky would be able to call NEA-Pres. Becky Pringle?” Dinkel-Smith wrote in the email. “They’ve gotten significant incoming and are getting targeted for a response from the media. I’ve gotten them to hold on their statement calling for clarification.”

Dinkel-Smith then received a draft of the NEA’s statement:

We appreciate the developing nature of the science and its implications for guidance, but releasing the guidance without accompanying school-related updates creates confusion and fuels the internal politicization of this basic health and safety issue.

CDC has consistently said, and studies support, that mitigation measures, including to protect the most vulnerable, remain necessary in schools and institutions of higher education — particularly because no elementary or middle school students, and few high school students, have been vaccinated.

This will also make it hard for school boards and leaders of institutions of higher education to do the right thing by maintaining mitigation measures. We need CDC clarification right away.

After coordination with the Biden White House, the teachers’ union released a statement with a much softer tone, which was then followed by the CDC clarifying its guidance to recommend that everyone —regardless of their vaccination status — should be masked in schools. – READ MORE