CDC
I think people need to understand that we’re not crying wolf here. This is serious - Rochelle Walensky MD MPH
image by: The White House
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Where the CDC went wrong on COVID-19 spread, masks and vaccination benefits
Listen, I’m a huge believer in listening to scientists. Implementing lessons from the scientific process is, by a significant distance, the best way to make policy in our country. More Americans should trust in science, not fewer, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is perhaps the highest profile organization of scientists we have. Even with all of those caveats, the CDC screwed some things up this past year.
In general, the agency has been too conservative and slow in making new guidance during a quickly moving pandemic. What has resulted is that the CDC’s messaging to the public hasn’t reflected what scientists know about the coronavirus, leading to a hodgepodge…
Resources
The CDC is beholden to corporations and lost our trust. We need to start our own The People's CDC
We’re epidemiologists, nurses and physicians, artists and biologists. We have come together with a common anger at the US government’s handling of Covid.
The Flimsy Evidence Behind the CDC’s Push to Vaccinate Children
A tremendous number of government and private policies affecting kids are based on one number: 335. That is how many children under 18 have died with a Covid diagnosis code in their record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet the CDC, which has 21,000 employees, hasn’t researched each death to find out whether Covid caused it or if it involved a pre-existing medical condition.
A Misleading C.D.C. Number
Saying that less than 10 percent of Covid transmission occurs outdoors is akin to saying that sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year. (The actual worldwide number is around 150.) It’s both true and deceiving.
As Omicron gallops across the globe, some countries begin to ask the once unthinkable: Should we just stop counting cases?
“The reason we want people to report is not to count numbers,” Morrison said recently. “It's about connecting people to care.”
C.D.C. Internal Report Calls Delta Variant as Contagious as Chickenpox
Infections in vaccinated Americans are rare, compared with those in unvaccinated people, the document said. But when they occur, vaccinated people may spread the virus just as easily.
CDC Report: Officials Knew Coronavirus Test Was Flawed But Released It Anyway
One HHS official told NPR this shouldn't have been a tough call. "The QC records showed that the test had a problem," the official said. "Lindstrom signed off on a quality control that was clearly flawed. He should not have released that kit."
CDC’s slow, cautious messaging on Covid-19 seems out of step with the moment, public health experts say
After months of pleas from scientists, the CDC acknowledged last week that Covid-19 can be spread through small particles floating in the air — an acknowledgment that came more than a year after some experts began warning that the virus is airborne. Separately, it took three months after Covid-19 vaccines began going into arms before the CDC issued its first attempt at outlining the activities vaccinated people could safely undertake.
Covid Confusion at the CDC
Decisions on boosters relied on data from Israel. Why isn’t the U.S. producing this research?
Here’s why the CDC recommends wearing masks indoors even if you’ve been fully vaccinated against COVID-19
If vaccinated people can get infected with the coronavirus, they can also spread it. Hence the CDC recommendation that vaccinated people remain masked in indoor public spaces to help stop viral transmission.
How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus.
Maybe With Delta the CDC Will Learn to Count
If you thought Covid was going away when everybody is vaccinated, the news about vaccinated spreaders is a shocker, and maybe the CDC is more full of “Zero Covid” dreamers than we knew. But Covid isn’t going away, it’s just receding as a major cause of death.
The C.D.C. Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects
The agency has withheld critical data on boosters, hospitalizations and, until recently, wastewater analyses.
The C.D.C. Needs to Stop Confusing the Public
The C.D.C. should have news conferences weekly, or even a few times a week, with a consistent spokesperson and a team of experts to answer technical questions. If officials feel the media has been misleading, then they should quickly hold a news conference and explain why.
The Noble Lies of COVID-19
Do we want public health officials to report facts and uncertainties transparently? Or do we want them to shape information to influence the public to take specific actions?
Why the CDC botched its coronavirus testing
The first testing kits from the Centers for Disease Control had a simple fault, and red tape prevented other labs from creating their own.
‘The war has changed’: CDC paper warns Delta variant is far more transmissible
“I think people need to understand that we’re not crying wolf here. This is serious,” Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, told CNN. “It’s one of the most transmissible viruses we know about. Measles, chickenpox, this – they’re all up there.”
Where the CDC went wrong on COVID-19 spread, masks and vaccination benefits
Listen, I’m a huge believer in listening to scientists. Implementing lessons from the scientific process is, by a significant distance, the best way to make policy in our country. More Americans should trust in science, not fewer, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is perhaps the highest profile organization of scientists we have. Even with all of those caveats, the CDC screwed some things up this past year.
CDC
Getting vaccinated prevents severe illness, hospitalizations, and death. Unvaccinated people should get vaccinated and continue masking until they are fully vaccinated.
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