Former surgeon general blasts CDC over mask communication: ‘They fumbled the ball at the 1-yard-line’

Former Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams blasted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after he said they "fumbled the ball at the 1-yard-line" in handling mask guidance for Americans.

Adams served under the Trump administration from 2017 until former President Donald Trump left office in January.

What are the details?

Adams said that he agreed with the plan of eliminating the need for masks in fully vaccinated Americans, but the execution was subpar to say the least.

During a Monday appearance on CNN's "New Day," Adams said, "I think this was an appropriate call based on the science. I think the play call was right, but they fumbled the ball at the one-yard line in terms of communicating this to the public."

Adams also said that CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky's announcement left those people working in public health "blindsided."

“I think you miss the nuance about protecting yourself versus protecting an organization," Adams explained. “It was a little bit of whiplash for the American public in terms of them saying just a week before, 'Keep your mask on' and then all of sudden they're saying, 'Now you can take them off.'"

What else?

In Thursday remarks made in a White House press briefing, Walensky said, “Anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities — large or small — without wearing a mask or physically distancing. If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic."

Walensky's announcement came just one day after she addressed Congress and told them that masks were still necessary for Americans — vaccinated or not.

Walensky told Fox News' Chris Wallace on Sunday that the organization is "getting data, evolving data, on the science."

"It certainly would have been easier if this science had evolved a week earlier and I didn't have to go to Congress making this statement," Walensky admitted. "But I'm delivering the science ... and you know, it evolved over this last week.

“And so taking all of these data together, we've been working really actively just this whole last week to try and move the science, move the data, to the American people and tell people — deliver the science to them," she added.