Walensky appeared to cheerfully reply that those dying of covid-19 were mostly people with preexisting medical problems: “The overwhelming number of deaths — over 75 percent — occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really, these are people who were unwell to begin with. And yes: really encouraging news in the context of omicron.”
Outrage followed. Many deemed the CDC director callous, prompting a hashtag,
#MyDisabledLifeIsWorthy. People opposed to mask and vaccine mandates
used the quote to justify a raft of baseless claims, such as that mandates are ineffective at slowing the spread of the
coronavirus, or that pandemic death tolls have been inflated by people dying from other causes. By Monday, the Republican National Committee was
sharing the clip on its “War Room” channel on YouTube.
But it turns out that ABC’s editing distorted what Walensky really said.
This week ABC replaced its clips online with a longer, unedited version of Walensky’s interview. In that one, the CDC director prefaces her reply to Vega by touting “
a really important study” of 1.2 million vaccinated people, which found that only a minuscule fraction of them — 0.003 percent — died of covid-19. Of the small number who did die, she noted, most of them had underlying health conditions.
That was the “encouraging news” Walensky was referring to: that vaccinations protect the vast majority of people. ABC’s original cuts made it sound as if the CDC director was happy that most deaths were occurring among people who were in poor health anyway.
Walensky and CDC officials spent several days trying to undo the damage after Friday’s broadcast.