Tony's Diary Package — page 1013

coronavirus pandemic during Wednesday night's episode of "Tucker Carlson Tonight." *****Critically important issue with CDC. Usual problem The CDC surprised us all by announcing that they are going to come out tomorrow with an updating of their guidelines across several areas including how one addresses getting back in to the public after a bout of COVID. The updated recommendations that they give are really inherently inconsistent. A number of things about them are troublesome, but the one that really stands out is the fact that they say that if you are infected you must isolate for five days and if you decide to test and have tests available you cannot go out into society with positive tests until after day 10. If you test negative for two days in a row within the 10 day period, you can go out into society but you still have to wear a mask until day 10. Importantly and disturbingly, if you test positive on day 10 since you have already reached the 10 day mark you can then still go out into society without a mask!!!! On the other hand, if you decide not to test at all, on day five you can go out into society with a mask and then on day 10 after day 10 you could take the mask off without knowing whether you're positive or not. This seems just so inherently inconsistent that it's going to be very difficult to explain that to the public. When Ashish heard that this was going to be announced tomorrow he demanded that Rochelle brief us on it tonight. When she did it became clear that the above contradictions existed (see above). Prior to that meeting, Rochelle called me up during the day and tried to explain what they were doing and it immediately didn't make any sense to me. I called up Cliff and he agreed with me. They seem to think that a positive test on day 10 doesn't necessarily mean that you're dangerous to go out into society because you should really be not infective after day 10 when in fact if you have a documented positive antigen test on day 10 all the data indicate that you definitely are transmissible since a positive antigen test means that you have replication competent virus. And so, the recommendations for those who cannot test because they don't have access to test are inherently contradictory to the recommendations for those who can test. This is going to drive Ron Klain completely crazy. In fact, Ashish called me up and said that Ron Klain is already so furious with Rochelle (even before he has heard this) that he fears that her job is in serious danger. Covid perhaps plateauing: