Within the administration, the CDC has ruffled feathers for the way it has handled the rollout of the guidelines for vaccinated Americans. In March, after a series of meetings and calls with senior officials on the White House’s Covid-19 task force and the Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC was told to “hold off” on releasing its initial advice on the topic. But by that time a version of the guidelines had already circulated among top health officials — who thought the language was final — and members of the media. The incident sparked tensions among the CDC, Department of Health and Human Services, and the White House. Some top administration staffers blamed the CDC for circulating the guidelines before the White House signed off on them. When the agency updated the guidelines in early April, senior administration officials told POLITICO that the CDC had not alerted many of the White House’s top Covid-19 advisers before publication as would normally be expected.