A member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 task force is speaking out about the politicization of wearing masks.
In an interview with Science Magazine, Celine Gounder was asked how to get people to wear masks. She replied, “It’s a challenging one because the issue has been so politicized. But in my mind, it’s like politicizing toilet paper. It’s a basic hygienic measure. It’s not about your political party. And we need to somehow break through that.”
Gounder, a New York University epidemiologist, also commented on how President Trump’s unwillingness to concede the election is affecting the work of the Biden task force.
“It’s certainly not an ideal situation,” she said. “But you have many people, including Biden himself, who have very long careers working in government … it’s not like they’re in the cold.” She added that there was nothing preventing the transition team from reaching out to governors and state and local health officials.
She also emphasized that scientists and doctors need to be front and center at press conferences in order to combat misinformation about the pandemic. Political officials should not be at those briefings, she said, because “by definition, once you have a political official communicating this, it becomes politicized. It really doesn’t matter whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat. It is politicized.”
Gounder appeared to be coy when asked if there was anything that the Biden task force had been unable to do because of the election standoff.
“I’m not going to answer that specifically,” she said.
