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KosAbility: What grade do you give the CDC for their pandemic response? [1]
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Date: 2023-04-30
Three years after the pandemic lockdown, my distrust in the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is bigger than ever. Prior to 2020, I had assumed that the CDC took meaningful, well considered, effective actions to ensure public health except for particular situations, such as Lyme disease. Since my 1999 tick bite, I’ve blamed the CDC for misleading me into assuming that my tick bite couldn’t lead to Lyme disease: The CDC guidelines asserted that a tick must be embedded for 24 hours to transmit disease and mine was only embedded for 5 minutes, so I didn’t worry about Lyme disease. Afterward 2000, I knew the CDC had made a bad call about ticks and Lyme disease based on inadequate evidence, but I didn’t doubt that the CDC was well equipped to manage a wide scale public health threat.
Very early in the pandemic, however, I ranted about the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in a local COVID-safe Facebook group, calling them out for their lousy COVID tests and their initial approach dismissing the need to wear masks. I know N95s and surgical masks were in short supply, but a good public health response could address that without setting the public up to view masks as useless.
A nurse in the group took offense with my distrust and lumped me in with anti-vaxxers and COVID-deniers, you know, the anti-science freaks. A few weeks later, however, the media reported on the flawed COVID test kits and finally even the CDC admitted the tests were poorly “designed and contaminated.” Earlier, I’d thought the CDC’s poor response was due to Trump’s influence, but even after 2021 I’ve continued complaining about the CDC ‘s actions and their failure to track suitable data on infections and consequences, particularly long covid.
As an immunocompromised disabled person, I’d hoped that the pandemic would bring about better standards for everyone’s health by protecting the most vulnerable people. Instead, we were left to fend for ourselves. Now, when the official public health emergency declaration expires in 11 days, so does tracking/reporting community transmission levels, free testing and other emergency benefits. California already eliminated the requirement for masks in health care settings in the beginning of April.
As a result of the CDC’s position, immunocompromised people cannot safely be in public and many others, particularly low income people, lose access to masks, test kits, Paxlovid and other help.
What do you think about how the CDC has handled the spread of a novel pathogen? In the poll below, vote for the grade you assign the CDC’s pandemic response.
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