CNN COVID-19 protocol hardliner now refuses to mask her kids, says they stunted her son's development

A CNN analyst who once suggested the unvaccinated should not be allowed to leave their homes recently declared that she would not mask her own children this year, citing how mandatory face coverings stunted her 5-year-old son’s language development.

Dr. Leana Wen, a medical analyst for the network, had been cited multiple times supporting continued COVID-19 protocols since the beginning of the pandemic. In March 2021, she blasted state governors who rescinded or never had mask mandates in their states.

“We are not out of the woods. We haven’t reached the end of the pandemic,” Wen said at the time.

“It’s counterproductive and truly infuriating these governors are treating this as if the pandemic is over. It’s not true.”

But in a recent Washington Post op-ed, she admitted the highly contagious omicron variant had shattered her hope that COVID could be contained and acknowledged that coronavirus “is here to stay.”

“With this new, indefinite time frame, the benefit-risk calculus of mitigation measures shifted dramatically,” the doctor wrote.

“I was willing to limit my children’s activities for a year or two but not for their entire childhood.”

Due to omicron and newer variants milder symptoms, Wen said she began weighing the risks and benefits of COVID as she did other “everyday risks,” like falls, car accidents or drowning.

“Of course I want to shield my children from injuries, and I take precautions, such as using car seats and teaching them how to swim,” she wrote, saying her family has eased precautions after the children were vaccinated.

Wen said she accepted the risk her children would catch COVID at school this year, just as they would the flu. She also refused to continue masking her kids because her eldest son, who was 2 years old when the pandemic began, had his language development stunted by mask mandates.

This candor is a significant reversal from a doctor who once called for the unvaccinated to be restricted to their homes.

"We need to start looking at the choice to remain unvaccinated the same as we look at driving while intoxicated. You have the option to not get vaccinated if you want, but then you can't go out in public," she told CNN's Chris Cuomo in Sept. 2021.

The CNN doctor said she would understand families who “view these tradeoffs differently,” saying there were “no easy, once-size-fits-all answer.”