Psaki defends CDC mask rule change: ‘Our goal is to save your lives’

White House press secretary Jen Psaki has defended the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decision to update its masking recommendations.

The CDC announced on Tuesday that in areas with “high” or “substantial” Covid-19 transmission vaccinated people should resume wearing masks indoors. This comes as concern grows over the Delta variant of Covid-19, which now accounts for more than 80 per cent of cases in the US.

“Our goal is to save their lives,” Ms Psaki told CBS News’s Weijia Jiang, who asked about whether the reversal might leave Americans with lingering doubts and a sense of “whiplash”.