gupta as well as president of the american medical association, dr. gerald harman. thank you both for joining me. sanjay, breaking news with the cdc advisers a little while ago recommending expanding boosters for youngsters as young as 12 years old. how significant is this development? on a personal note i have two children that fall into that category, so they will be getting their booster shots. my older daughter already got hers, she is 16. i think it will make a difference for people who qualify. here is the issue, wolf. i think we are talking overall in the country about 5% of the population, and of that 5% these are people between the ages of 12 and 15 only about half have already gotten their first two shots. so, you know, it is a relatively small percentage that we re talking about that are going to be impacted by this. so it is good for them, you know, to be able to get this added protection, but the real problem still, wolf, whether it is children or adults is still pri
contagious before you go back into your workforce, your family, and potential shed the virus more. i think that s significant as well. sanjay, you have a news say on this issue coming out soon on cnn.com about how the cdc is missing the mark on these guidelines. what do you see as the main failure here? well, first of all, i completely agree with dr. harmon here on the fact it is confusing. i mean there s a couple of things. i don t know if we have this graph, wolf. i want to show you one of the studies they actually looked at to determine how contagious are you on what day after you have been diagnosed with covid. so we re talking about day five here. that s when they say, look, day five you could potentially be ending your isolation. well, we know on day five 31%, roughly a third of people are still contagious. so if those people, as the doctor mentioned, aren t getting tested, that s potentially putting a lot of people out into the public that could potentially transmit the viru
point i think is of concern. i would add to that, wolf, that the masks issue, you know, we ve talked about this a lot, but the cdc is still saying, you know, three-ply cloth masks are okay. omicron spreads very easily from person to person, and being able to have these masks, n95 or kn95 masks, which are more plentifully available, is really important now. if you are going to wear a mask, you should wear a good mask. those are three areas the message could be more clear and effective. that s an excellent point. dr. harmon, you say the cdc s ambiguous guidance could allow this virus to spread further. just how real are the consequences of this messaging failure? well, this isn t the ama versus the cdc issue. from what you heard to dr. gupta s point, what we re after is if you have a covid infection we want to make sure before you resume your day-to-day activities and spread this virus, and it is a highly