Remember that non-alignment NBC News noted between the Biden administration and Democratic governors chafing at eternal masking? When the White House hurriedly added a COVID-19 press briefing from its task force to the schedule this morning, most people expected to see a shift in the “science” to reflect support for blue-state rollbacks.

Instead, CDC director Rochelle Walensky delivered … a heapin’ helping of the status quo:

CDC Director Walensky will not be updating mask guidance today:

"We at the CDC will keep the public informed about our guidance and we will clearly communicate those recommendations to the public if and when they are updated." pic.twitter.com/nFclIfxtrs

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 9, 2022

Then what was the purpose of adding a briefing today? Apparently, the White House knew it would get lots of questions about Biden’s gubernatorial allies breaking ranks on the pandemic restrictions, thanks to their own political “science,” so to speak. Rather than bend to the reality that Americans  — including some of Biden’s fellow Democrats –have begun revolting against these restrictions, the CDC and Walensky wants to double down on them instead. For now, anyway.

If that was going to be the message, though, why hold a last-minute press briefing? Walensky et al could have just released a statement to the same effect without raising expectations of some kind of change. This White House has proven remarkably incompetent at that kind of expectations management.

The data on the CDC’s tracking website might give a hint as to why they’re reluctant to move at the moment. Daily deaths with COVID-19 diagnoses attached have plateaued but not yet started declining, and deaths are a lagging indicator:

Hospitalizations have begun falling, however. Also, both measures have a very big problem:

Let’s not forget that the CDC has yet to cull out the correlative diagnoses from the causative diagnoses in either measure. After months of criticism over that inaccuracy in data, the CDC is now about to require hospitals and other reporters to differentiate between correlative admissions/deaths. That’s a bigger problem with Omicron than with previous variants, since Omicron is both far more transmissible and also less severe. In other words, we should expect a huge spike in correlative COVID-19 diagnoses in both categories without any causation in either.

Furthermore, the Omicron variant gets transmitted at the same rate by vaccinated and unvaccinated people. It also is so transmissible that masking does little to prevent it — as case data from mask-mandate states demonstrates. Here’s New York, for instance, and NYC:

Put NYS and NYC together, and it outstrips the peak for non-mask-mandate Florida:

And the combined-New York case spike outstrips non-mask-mandate Texas, too:

In other words, masking isn’t terribly effective at holding down transmission, even where mandated. That’s likely because (a) masks aren’t 100% effective, (b) most people use less effective masks, (c) they don’t wear them properly either, and (d) Omicron simply is too transmissible to contain anyway. On top of that, masking children are worse on all of those points, and children are neither at substantial risk for seriously acute infections, nor vectors for community transmission.

Today’s press briefing would have been an excellent opportunity to return to actual science and the clear message from the CDC’s own data on masking. Instead, the White House managed to conduct yet another faceplant and extend their disconnect not just from voters but from leading politicians in their own party. Walensky did throw Democrat governors a bone, though. Make of this what you will. Sure sounds like “follow the science unless your local politician needs to protect his/her phony-baloney job,” though.

Q: "When it comes to masking, should people be listening to the CDC or listening to their governors?"@CDCDirector Dr. Walensky: "We've always said that these decisions are going to have to be made at the local level…in many of these decisions are using a phased approach." pic.twitter.com/T3LkyUscjs

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 9, 2022