Walensky should quit, and not just because she still refuses to bow to the accumulated evidence that masking kids does more harm than good. She should quit because, if this account by Robby Soave is accurate, she won’t take responsibility for how her agency’s guidance is damaging people’s health.

Soave somehow got hold of audio from a private virtual briefing that Walensky and Anthony Fauci gave to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday. Walensky was peppered with predictable questions. Why does the CDC continue to recommend masking kids when European countries have eschewed it for many months with no apparent ill effects? Why does it insist on relying on a study of mask effectiveness from Arizona that’s now been discredited? Why is the CDC shaping its school guidance based on national numbers of cases and hospitalizations when outbreaks are a local phenomenon? How can the agency conceivably consider relaxing its mask guidance for adults but potentially not for kids even though one of the best-known facts about COVID is that children are at far lower risk?

Per Soave, her answers weren’t great. On the discredited study:

“They all [studies] have limitations, and that’s important to recognize because we are not randomizing schools,” she said. “We have to control for whether there are windows, ventilation, and other activities happening outside of these schools. So all of these studies have limitations. But they are for the most part uniformly pointing to that when there’s a lot of disease out there, the masks are preventing that disease and preventing that transmission and because of that we are able to keep our schools open.”

Worse, when she was confronted about the agency being overly cautious, she sniffed that policymakers are free to ignore its advice — which is not how policymakers operate, especially knowing how heavily invested psychologically Democratic voters are in following what they perceive to be “the science.”

In response, Walensky defended the agency’s current guidance, but also noted—perhaps with some frustration—that local jurisdictions were free to disregard it.

“I will also say that guidance is just guidance, and all of these decisions, we’ve continued to say, have to be made at the local level,” she said. “As cases come down dramatically, we have deferred our guidance to the local jurisdictions.”

It’s true that the average individual can, and routinely does, ignore CDC health guidance. A commonly known example is the agency encouraging people to cook their beef until it’s well done to make sure that any bacteria in the meat are killed, something no steak-lover would consider doing. But policymakers in bluish jurisdictions will be loath to contradict CDC guidance, especially with respect to the health of children, in the expectation of how liberal parents will react. Even with Democratic governors dropping state mandates lately, I don’t think lefty support for school mask mandates will shift meaningfully until some avatar of Science like Walensky or Fauci says it’s safe to end them.

Which, tragically, they refuse to do for now:

Despite science, Dr. Fauci claims “it is risky” to stop forcing kids to wear facemasks

"It’s understandable why people want to take masks off the kids. But, right now, given the level of activity that we have, it is risky.” pic.twitter.com/K3mLDna2UA

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 17, 2022

Fauci allowed yesterday that it may be time to start “inching” towards normalcy but that’s as far as he would go. Actual quote: “Is the impact on mental health, is the impact on development of kids, is the impact on schools – is that balanced against trying to be totally pristine and protecting against infection? I don’t have the right answer to that.” After two years of masking kids, he should probably have some semblance of an answer, no?

According to Soave, some Democrats at the hearing were also frustrated with Walensky’s dodging on questions about masks. Anna Eshoo of California wanted to know why Walensky continues to cite national data to justify masking when the COVID outlook in her own liberal district is different, with even well educated liberals easing off of masks. When Walensky reminded her that the CDC website includes county-level data so that local officials can tailor their approach, Eshoo got frustrated:

“I think that’s confusing, and I do think that it puts a dent in CDC credibility,” said Eshoo. “Credibility is everything in this. Who are you going to pay attention to? So, I mean, it goes to that and I think it’s troubling. They’re making it sound as if, you know, all of these local entities, public health directors, whatever, are not paying attention to the CDC. That’s the way it looks to me. All right? That’s the way it looks. That’s the way it sounds. So I don’t know. What should I tell my constituents? Oh, look at their website. I don’t think that’s a good answer, honestly.”

As the head of the CDC, you can’t run around yelling that cases are too high nationally to unmask now and then say under your breath “but check your county’s numbers on our website.” Eshoo understands that risk-averse Democrats will base their behavior on how anxious Walensky seems about the national outlook, and Walensky herself should understand that after a year in office. Warning anxious parents that it’s too soon to unmask their kids while shrugging that policymakers are free to do as they wish means that mandates in Democratic-run jurisdictions will persist or, if they’re lifted, that parents will insist on making their kids anyway.

If she can’t do right by children at this point *and* won’t accept accountability for her outsized influence on how half the country navigates COVID, she should resign and stand aside for someone who will.

Peter Suderman has a shrewd take today on why most of the public increasingly finds itself eager to drop restrictions. It’s not so much a reaction to greater population immunity or the emergence of a “milder” variant but rather a sense of resignation post-Omicron that there’s no way to win this particular war. We spent 18 months trying every trick to limit transmission, and for our trouble we got hit with a wave of one of the most insanely contagious viruses civilization has ever seen. Even the modern miracle of the COVID vaccines weren’t able to prevent infection:

As Anderson puts it: “The turn away from COVID restrictions seems less about them having become deeply unpopular overnight, but rather that public opinion has soured on our ability to win the fight against COVID at all.” Two years in, the war on COVID increasingly feels like a quagmire, and voters are looking for an exit plan.

I use the phrase war on COVID on purpose, for there are clear echoes of both the war on drugs and the war on terror: long-running government campaigns championed by the political class and predicated on preserving public health and safety, which eventually proved futile at best, and deeply destructive and counterproductive at worst. Both involved a mix of largely symbolic acts, intended mostly to visibly demonstrate that something was being done and more punitive initiatives that produced damaging effects that tended to fall heaviest on out groups with little political influence.

That may explain why Walensky can’t bring herself to drop mask mandates for kids. It’s like asking a general to admit that a war is not only lost but was possibly unwinnable.

Philip Klein notes one potential “exit strategy” from this quagmire, namely, tying mask mandates to local vaccination rates. The CDC could set a bright-line rule: If your community has more than 80 percent vaxxed, the risk of a wave of severe illness is sufficiently low that mandates aimed at preventing transmission can be lifted. That at least would give blue districts some “scientific” cover to lift mandates, he points out, since they have the highest vaccination rates. How about it, Walensky?