CDC says vaccinated Americans should wear masks indoors in areas with high Delta spread – live | US news

The National Nurses Union (NNU) celebrated the CDC’s guidance today that vaccinated Americans should wear masks indoors in areas with high Delta spread, but urged officials to make the rules broader and easier to follow.

“As registered nurses, we always course correct when a care plan for our patient must be adjusted in order to promote optimal healing. We applaud the CDC for adjusting its care plan for this country by recommending a partial return to indoor masking for vaccinated people,” said NNU executive director Bonnie Castillo, said in a statement.

“But,” Castillo said, “because we all must be responsible for one another, the CDC should take the next logical step and urge indoor masking everywhere in the country.”

“Rather than making people figure out if they are in a substantial or high transmission area, or leaving public health up to the honor system, registered nurses recommend reinstating universal masking in all locations, regardless of vaccination status,” said NNU president Deborah Burger, added.

Joe Biden will announce a requirement that federal employees and contractors either get vaccinated against Covid-19 or get regular tests, CNN reports, based on an anonymous source.

From CNN:

The announcement will come in remarks where Biden is also expected to lay out a series of new steps, including incentives, in an attempt to spur new vaccinations as the Delta variant spreads rapidly throughout the country. It will also follow the decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs to require its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated over the course of the next two months.

While the specifics are still being finalized, the source said, federal workers would be required to attest to their vaccination status or submit to regular testing. The source said the proposal will be roughly similar to what is being implemented in New York City. Additional requirements for the unvaccinated could be added as agencies push to vaccinate their employees.

Asked by a journalist earlier today whether he was considering a vaccine mandate, Biden said: “That’s under consideration right now, but if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not really as smart as I thought you were.”

Hugo Lowell in Washington reports:

Former Trump administration officials can testify to Congress about Donald Trump’s role in the deadly January attack on the Capitol and his efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 election, the justice department (DoJ) has said in a letter obtained by the Guardian.

The move by the justice department declined to assert executive privilege for Trump’s acting attorney general, Jeffrey Rosen, clearing the path for other top former Trump administration officials to also testify to congressional committees investigating the Capitol attack without fearing repercussions.

The justice department authorised witnesses to appear specifically before the two committees. But a DoJ official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, said they expected that approval to extend to the 6 January select committee that began proceedings on Tuesday.

Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee, told the Guardian in a recent interview that he would investigate both Trump and anyone who communicated with the former president on 6 January, raising the prospect of depositions with an array of Trump officials.

Rosen and Trump administration witnesses can give “unrestricted testimony” to the Senate judiciary and House oversight committees, which are scrutinising the attempt by the Trump White House to stop Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win, the letter said.

The justice department’s decision marks a sharp departure from the Trump era, when the department repeatedly intervened on behalf of top White House officials to assert executive privilege and shield them from congressional investigations into the former president.

Read more:

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidance urging vaccinated Americans to wear masks indoors if they live in areas with high levels of Covid spread. “In areas with substantial and high transmission, CDC recommends fully vaccinated people wear masks in public, indoor settings to help prevent the spread of the delta variant and protect others,” CDC director Rochelle Walesnky said this afternoon. The new guidance comes amid a surge in coronavirus cases among unvaccinated Americans, due to the spread of the delta variant.
• Biden described the new mask mandate as “another step on our journey to defeating this virus”. “I hope all Americans who live in the areas covered by the CDC guidance will follow it,” the president said in a statement. “I certainly will when I travel to these areas.” Biden noted that he will lay out his administration’s new plans to increase the US vaccination rate on Thursday.
• Biden said he is considering instituting a vaccine mandate for federal employees, a move that would impact roughly 2 million Americans. Some local and state leaders, including New York mayor Bill de Blasio and California governor Gavin Newsom, have already announced similar mandates for their government employees.
• The January 6 select committee held its first hearing on Capitol Hill. The House panel’s members, seven Democrats and two Republicans, heard from four law enforcement officers who defended the Capitol on January 6, as a pro-Trump mob stormed the building.
• The four officers gave emotional testimony about the physical and emotional injuries they sustained because of the insurrection. “I was grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country. I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm, as I heard chants of ‘Kill him with his own gun,’” Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone said. US Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who is Black, told committee members that insurrectionists repeatedly called him the “n” word.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Rochelle Walensky, encouraged vaccinated Americans to wear masks indoors if they live in “areas with substantial and high transmission” of coronavirus.

So what qualifies as substantial and high transmission? This map, shared by a Washington Post reporter, shows the many parts of the US that will be affected by the new guidance:

In his speech this afternoon to members of the intelligence community, Joe Biden underscored the threat that cyber attacks pose to the US and its allies.

“We’ve seen how cyber threats, including ransomware attacks, increasingly are able to cause damage and destruction in the real world,” Biden said.

He added, “I can’t guarantee this, and you’re as informed as I am, but I think it’s more likely … if we end up in a war, a real shooting war, with a major power — it’s going to be as a consequence of a cyber breach of great consequence. And it’s increasing exponentially, the capabilities.”

Biden’s comments come on the heels of several high-profile ransomware attacks on major companies, which were carried out by hackers believed to be based in Russia.

Joe Biden has released a statement in support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new recommendation for vaccinated Americans to wear masks indoors if they live in regions with high levels of coronavirus spread.

The president described the new guidance as “another step on our journey to defeating this virus”.

“I hope all Americans who live in the areas covered by the CDC guidance will follow it,” Biden said. “I certainly will when I travel to these areas.”

The president once again encouraged all eligible Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, saying that vaccines are “the most important protection we have against the Delta variant”.

Biden added that he will “lay out the next steps in our effort to get more Americans vaccinated” on Thursday.

“By following the science, and by doing our part by getting vaccinated, America can beat COVID,” the president said.

Joe Biden has just wrapped up a speech to members of the intelligence community at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Virginia.

As he was walking away from the podium, the president took a couple shouted questions from reporters.

One journalist asked Biden whether he plans to mandate coronavirus vaccinations for federal employees.

“That’s under consideration right now, but if you’re not vaccinated, you’re not really as smart as I thought you were,” Biden said.

Some local and state leaders, including New York mayor Bill de Blasio and California governor Gavin Newsom, have already announced such mandates for their government employees.

Dr Rochelle Walensky wrapped up her press call by acknowledging that the new mask recommendation for vaccinated Americans is “not a welcome piece of news”.

The CDC director said that the new guidance “weighs heavily” on her. “This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” she said.

Walensky expressed empathy with Americans who are exhausted after enduring more than a year of pandemic-related restrictions, but she emphasized the importance of protecting the health of our communities.

The CDC director warned that, if the delta variant continues to spread at a high rate, the world may be “just a few mutations away” from a variant that renders the vaccines useless.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shared some data that the agency has been collecting on the recent spread of coronavirus.

According to Walensky, the viral load in vaccinated Americans who have contracted the virus in recent weeks is similar to the viral load in unvaccinated Americans who have tested positive for the virus.

However — and it is extremely important to keep this in mind — all of the available data currently indicates that those who are vaccinated are much less likely to be hospitalized or die from coronavirus.

The CDC director also emphasized that almost all of the transmission the US is currently seeing is occurring among unvaccinated people.

Walensky noted the CDC has been tracking tens of thousands of breakthrough cases among vaccinated individuals in recent weeks, and the agency plans to soon release more of the data its experts have collected.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending that fully vaccinated Americans wear masks indoors if they live in areas reporting high numbers of new coronavirus cases.

“In areas with substantial and high transmission, CDC recommends fully vaccinated people wear masks in public, indoor settings to help prevent the spread of the delta variant and protect others,” CDC director Rochelle Walesnky said in a press call moments ago.

Walensky added, “This includes schools. CDC recommends that everyone in K-12 schools wear a mask indoors, including teachers, staff, students and visitors, regardless of vaccination status. Children should return to full-time, in-person learning in the fall with proper prevention strategies in place.”

The new recommendation comes as the US is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases among unvaccinated Americans, as the highly transmissible delta variant spreads across the country.

Maya Yang reports for the Guardian:

The Biden administration announced on Tuesday that it will allocate $121 million in grants to more than 100 community-based organizations to boost vaccinations in underserved communities.

The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan and will be distributed to groups such as local first responders and churches to help provide rural communities with more information regarding COVID-19 vaccines. The grants will also support Latino, African-American and tribal entities associated with church communities as part of the national campaign to address vaccine hesitancy.

“Today investments are part of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to strengthen equity and support organizations that focus on underserved communities as they work to increase vaccinations and keep people safe and healthy,” said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.

Public and nonprofit private organizations were allowed to apply for the funds, including local and regional community-based organizations that have experience in public health programs.

Last month, the Biden administration awarded $125 million in workforce grants for community-based efforts to bolster vaccinations in underserved communities.

As the highly-transmissible delta variant spreads across the country, the majority of new hospitalizations and deaths come from unvaccinated individuals.

Protesters disrupted a press conference held by a group of House Republicans who have falsely described Capitol insurrectionists as “political prisoners”.

As four law enforcement officers testified to a House select committee about the violence they encountered on January 6, several Republican lawmakers held an event outside the justice department to criticize the treatment of the insurrectionists.

The lawmakers were met with a loud group of protesters, who blew whistles and heckled the Republicans as they tried to deliver their remarks.

One protester’s sign read, “Traitors + Rapists: Sit down.” That appears to be a reference to the sex trafficking allegations against Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, who has denied claims that he engaged in a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been stripped of her House committee assignments for spewing extremist views, told the protesters, “We are not deterred.”

She added, “We will not back down. We will not stop asking questions. We are looking for the truth.”

But moments later, Greene and her colleagues wrapped up the press conference and abruptly left the event as protesters continued to yell at them.

As the group held their press conference, four law enforcement officers told House members about the physical, mental and emotional injuries they sustained as a result of the insurrection.

“I was grabbed, beaten, tased, all while being called a traitor to my country. I was at risk of being stripped of and killed with my own firearm, as I heard chants of ‘Kill him with his own gun,’” Metropolitan Police Department officer Michael Fanone said in his opening statement this morning. “I can still hear those words in my head today.”

This is Joanie Greve in Washington, taking over the blog again after a great assist from Martin Pengelly.

The new chief of the US Capitol Police, Tom Manger, has released a statement praising the USCP and MPD officers who testified before the January 6 select committee today.

“I am proud of the officers who had the courage to share their stories in front of the House Select Committee and our entire country to describe the horrors and heroism on January 6,” Manger said in his statement.

“I am equally proud of everyone in this Department and our partner agencies who fought like hell to preserve our democracy.”

Manger was sworn in just last week, after the USCP had gone more than six months without a permanent chief. The former USCP chief, Steven Sund, announced his resignation a day after the Capitol insurrection.